Our Honeymoon!

Woke up and had breakfast. Paul felt a bit hung over. Today was the day that Catherine had been dreading for months - Helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon! Chris gathered up the flyers and we set off in the van to the Helipad. Paul got to ride up front for the first time and he had a good chat with Chris. On the way down we passed an IMAX cinema showing a film of a helicopter flight over the Grand Canyon - what's the point when you can do it for real?!?

We got to the Helicopter place and paid our money - after a short wait we made our way out to the chopper - we were with 2 random people and the Golden Girls (Jill & Marion). Catherine looked a bit worried but managed to get in and strap herself in. We put headphones on and the pilot gave us a little talk and then we took off. We swooped low over some trees for about 10 minutes and then it just opened up in front of us and there it was - the Grand Canyon. Again pictures do not do the views justice - we flew around a bit then went over to the other side. When we turned back the pilot dropped us into the Canyon which got all of the girls giddy! We then made our way back to the helipad - what an experience!

After the 2nd group arrived back we made our way to the camp. A lot of the people who didn’t fly had already gone on hikes. Paul sat around with Chris for a bit and dragged his heels about going for a hike. Eventually Catherine persuaded him to go on one. Cath went into the tent to get ready - we had been intruded upon! Chris had been telling us to make sure our tents were done all the way up because squirrels get into them. One had got into ours and left a little present for us in the corner of the tent. He had also visited Courtney and pooed on her white jumper!

After cleaning up we left the camp to walk to the bus to take us to the Bright Angel Trail to hike into the Canyon. Courtney went down and the Golden Girls and Dee just went for a walk along the rim. We decided to go down into the Canyon. On the way we saw a few chipmunks and lots of birds. We got down to the 1.5m point and refilled our water bottles and headed back. Paul continued to moan just as he had done all the way down!

We got back to the camp and Chris told Paul that James who was on our trek was on the wrong tour! Because of an admin error we had claimed him when he should have been on the other tour - I don’t think he was bothered and he said that he would like to continue on our trip.

We had dinner (which wasn’t as nice as we had cooked the night before!) and then settled down for a campfire again. Chris told Paul that he had seen a good stockpile of wood so they headed off to steal some firewood. They got loads and set up a fire. We sat around having a few drinks and one of the other trek leaders came over who was a nice guy and was talking to Paul about his Mag Light and how it was indestructible - after this Paul started to use it a fire stoker! Again loads of people asked Chris where he was going to sleep tonight (he told us on the first night that he always sleeps outside) and he gave them the same answer - outside - this is a question we would hear about 100 more time over the next few weeks!

Again we stayed up late but eventually went to bed at about 3. Chris slept outside!