It’s about a 3 hour drive into Death Valley from he RV park where we stayed. We’re still feeling a bit out of sync, so we decided to have a long sleep and a slow start, heading off at 9am.

Most of the drive is pretty simple, boring highways, getting used to driving on the right (wrong!) side. It’s the last stretch where I start sensing somethings changing. More interesting scenery and signs that warn to turn off air conditioning to avoid overheating.

We climb up and up (not what I expected when heading ‘down’ into Death Valley!). But then the road plateaus and a sign suggests a brake check. We start to descend having passed up the offer. Maybe I was tired, but at first I wasn’t stuck by what I saw: a huge flat expanse with lofty mountains either side (a valley, right?), it didn’t look that cool at first.

We drive to the visitor centre first. As we continue the scenery begins to hint at how cool this place is: the sand dunes in the middle of the valley, huge mountains of all sizes – and colours – all around.

At the visitor centre the thermometer was reading 105° (40°C). That’s pretty hot, for a standard spring afternoon.

Now we drive to our campsite for the next two nights at Mesquite Springs. Our final stop is Ubehebe Crater for sunset.

It’s super windy at the crater! And the colours of the rocks and the sun create warmth and shadows in amazing ways. It’s too windy for us to be comfortable walking the whole way around, so we go up to a vantage point with a couple of beers and watch the sun set.

(The crater we formed a couple of thousand years ago when some magma made its way to an groundwater and caused a superheated steam explosion. The crater is 200m deep and 600m wide!)