(Day 7: Moab)

Another morning and another day to attempt to drag ourselves out of bed and in to breakfast. We managed it…just. Afterwards we got ourselves ready for hiking. We were hiking with Kim and David today and, we found out, their friends Jeanie and David were also coming. As everyone couldn’t be ready until 11am, though, we had an hour to sit in the sunshine in the garden and read books, relaxing in the fresh, cool air, as it warmed up slowly.

Once we were all ready, David drove us all in his truck to the Sand Flats area and we parked at the base of a large sandstone fin. We were going “finning”…! We started by going up…steeply up, with the odd scramble, until we reached the top of the fin, where we walked (going up and down) along the top. The scenery was great.

Occasionally we descended down between fins, skirted around deep potholes (more like bathtubs than potholes, if you ask me) only to climb back up onto another one. We saw a…hawk? (Feel free to suggest otherwise if you can identify the bird).

We walked for just over a mile, before reaching the end of a very large canyon, where we stopped for lunch. We could see a huge arch in the canyon, and a small cave and spring seep.

We returned along a different fin, which involved some steep climbing, but fewer scrambles, until we were back at the car. It was only 2.6 miles in total, but still a good work out as well as an adventure.

We had a little drive around on the way back, but once back I figured that we had a couple of hours to spare before going for dinner and so we headed up to Arches National Park. Despite having been here for three days, this was our first trip into one of the parks! We decided to walk down Park Avenue, a 1.7 mile round trip, which is one of our favourite walks in Arches. The afternoon sun was warming the rocks and it had the perfect, stereotypical ‘wild west’ look.

After that, there was just time to drive to the Courthouse Wash and admire the cottonwoods, turning gold and orange and glittering in the sunshine.

Back at Cali Cochitta, we had a brief rest in the garden before getting ourselves cleaned up for dinner. Together with Kim and David, we went for Mexican food at Baja Miguel’s. As always, very yummy. We came back and sat on the patio. The air was still warm and it was very pleasant, but we were all tired. Once back in our room it felt quite late. It was then that I realised…it was still only 8pm! Ah well…another great day, even if we are worn out!