Day 24

Not having had the most comfortable of nights, Lynne was up with the sun, just in time to see a bobcat duck under the tent cabin opposite ours! Still no sign of any bears though. The plan for today was to hire some bikes, so we duly reported to the hire centre at 9am sharp to pick up our steeds - magnificent machines with handlebars resembling those of a Harley Davidson!
Feeling just like Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda in Easy Rider - apart from the ‘easy’ part, and the fact that we were riding what were essentially adult versions of a Chopper - we set off to explore the valley, the sun on our faces and the wind in our hair! This was a fantastic way to see what is a beautiful place, and made a lovely change from being cooped up inside a car. It did have the disadvantage of not being able to listen to music, so we weren’t able to get our daily dose of Brad Paisley - our new country music hero - but this was compensated by having ‘Born to be Wild’ running on a constant loop in our heads.
Having completed a 10-mile round trip around the valley floor, we stopped on the shore of a mountain stream for a picnic lunch. Hot and sweaty from our exertions, we decided that said stream looked very inviting, so pulled up our bikes at a small beach area where other people were paddling, swimming and kayaking, and happily ran down the sand into the FREEZING water! Not really surprising in hindsight, considering the stream was probably the product of snowmelt or glacial run-off, but ‘refreshing’ is hardly the word!
By the time evening came around, we were exhausted after probably the most exercise we’ve done all trip, although not so exhausted that we couldn’t enjoy yet another all-you-can-eat-buffet! Not up to the standards of Vegas, however - Matthew didn’t even go back for seconds, let alone the five return trips he made at the Paris hotel buffet! Returning to our tent cabin for the second night, we now considered ourselves Yosemite veterans, all fears of bears banished from our minds. Matthew even declared that he thought their presence was overplayed and that the measures we had been required to take were more precautionary than anything. Not so the guy we overheard walking past our tent, however, who announced he was imposing a 7pm curfew on himself the following night, or possibly going to stay in the Hilton. Following a game of ‘Backpacker’ (thanks Paul and Liz), we got into our single beds to read for a bit before going to sleep…
It took a while before it registered with Lynne that the crunching sound outside her window had been going on a bit too long - “What is that sound?” Matthew, who had assumed when it had begun that it was just a fellow camper sorting out the contents of their bear-proof locker, picked up the torch and shone it out the mesh window, straight onto a big hairy arse. No, he wasn‘t looking in the mirror; “It’s a bear,” came his measured response. There followed a brief period of trying to convince Lynne of this fact, but eventually she plucked up the courage to take a look herself, in time to see it disappear around the tent one row back. So much for the ‘precautionary’ measures and the ‘exaggerated’ threat of bears! A little scary, but at the same time a great privilege to get to see one so close. Not that we would have wanted it to come back…