From Palm Springs we made our way to The Joshua Tree National Park, which took just under an hour.  As we ventured further in land passed the desert springs, the Joshua Trees started to scatter the sides of the road, firstly the odd one or two then there was a forest of them.  We parked up at the North Entrance which is in Twenty Nine Palms, to be loaded with a map, tips and information.  It was at this point where I asked the very typical question “Where is THE Joshua Tree?” To which had the response, “There is no one Joshua Tree Mam, just lots, so choose one which takes your fancy.”  Well you gotta to ask these things.

The Joshua Tree National park was one of the places on our trip that I was really looking forward to, I suppose that mix of being right in the Southern Californian stark desert under the giant twisted yuca trees and being in the real life version of all the photos I’ve stored by memory over the years.  It really did live up to the hype and perhaps even more so.  We were lucky to have visited on one of the hottest days, sun beaming down heavy on our backs, the bluest of sky and shadows of the J-Tree bouncing around the vast, vast landscape.

The park straddles the Colorado Desert and the Mojave Desert, and is home to a variety of flora and fauna and wildlife, the latter I was happy to ignore, except the birds I like the birds.  The road runs through and around the desert, and we took in the wonder as we drove through, jumping out pretty often to soak it up and try to capture every detail on film, which of course you can never really do. As the road went on the trees became more sporadic and replaced by huge, surreal geological displays of rock formations, these jumbo rocks were slightly mind blowing in scale and also in shape. They could have almost been huge dinosaurs, some with eyes looking at you, almost faces of horror, rather crazy in the pitch black dark if you have an overactive imagination like me, although to be there star gazing at night would be rather incredible.

To think of how long these grand formations have been standing  was a rather  astonishing and overwhelming fact and made most other things in life feel rather small, perspective was certainly realised.

As we left the park with the J -Trees  spreading over the amazing desert fauna,  I felt pretty pleased that I may have not got to see THE Joshua Tree, but an array of beautiful Joshua Trees, with the whispers of their long history, standing as a wonder in the wilderness. Slightly eerie, slightly bewitching but so very extraordinary!

We flew: with Virgin Atlantic, Picked up a car: with National Car Hire We entered the park at the North Entrance where we paid about $20 each to enter the park. 

Dress- Old Mango similar here

Converse- Asos

Thank you for reading x