Day 88 & 89 - Pinnacles National Park, CA

The drive into Pinnacles National Park was down a little single lane farm road. We were the only car travelling along this road for the majority of the journey and with just farms either side, we did wonder a couple of times whether we were going in the right direction.

We were both relieved when we saw the entrance sign for Pinnacles National Park and were glad that our map reading skills paid off as there was no phone reception to check where we were on Google Maps.

We headed to our campsite and were pleased to see that we were one of only a very few campers staying, little did we know that this would cause problems in other ways.

As Lee was putting the inside of the tent together, I started on dinner, Tuna Pasta. Before I'd even finished opening the tin of tuna, I noticed 2 fury faces looking at me from the bushes. By the time the lid was off, they were both at my side and ready to pounce on the tuna tin. I shouted at them, ran around the table chasing them and then was almost beaten when they decided to tag team, one made me chase him one way whilst the other made a dash for the tuna.

All this time, Lee was inside the tent laughing. He eventually came out when red faced and annoyed I told him there would be no dinner if he didn't come and help.

We eventually managed to get dinner served and still the little buggers kept trying to get to our food. It wasn't until it was all eaten, cleaned up and packed away into the animal proof locker did they finally leave us alone.

Lee named the raccoons Phil and Grant after their Eastender counterparts due to their mischievous and terrorising behaviour.

The next day, we saw a Park Ranger and mentioned the raccoons to him. His response was "isn't it lovely to see animal in the campsite" - yeah sure, when they're not trying to steal your dinner!

The next day, we did a couple of awesome hikes to caves which we really enjoyed even if they were very scary at times. The first hike was long the Moses Spring Rim Trail which was a moderate hike to a talus cave, through the cave and then up to a reservoir. The cave was dark at times but the trail was well marked out and there wasn't too much climbing. The second hike we did in the evening was along the Old Pinnacles Trail to Balconies Cave. This was a moderate hike too until we reached the cave. The cave was pitch black, the trail was difficult to find and there was a lot of climbing over boulders. For most people, this would be a lot of fun but I'm not overly keen on small enclosed spaces and I don't have the best night vision so I was really glad when we got to the end of the cave. We then had the option to go back through the cave the way we had come or continue on the loop up a steep up hill that went around the cave and was about 3 miles longer. There was no way I was going back through the cave so as the darkness of the night set in, we hiked a lot further than we planned.

We've never hiked at night before but we overheard a ranger telling another group of people that in Pinnacles night hikes are safe as there are no big dangerous animals (like bears and mountain lions) and due to the heat of the day, it is a much nicer experience to get to the caves. Once you're at the caves, it doesn't matter what time of day it is, they're dark anyway. We had a lot of fun hiking in the dark listening out to the sounds of the forest and with the temperature being cooler, we managed to stack a good number of miles in. I'm not sure if there are many other National Parks where this is possible but we're going to keep looking out in case we can do another night hike again, maybe without the scary cave this time!

We didn't see Phil or Grant again. The campsite was full the next night so maybe they found some easier prey to steal from or they weren't as keen on the sausage pasta.