My bucket list pick was worth the wait in gold
amazing wines are grown in this region – so much so that following a walk around Jamestown’s shops and atmospheric main street, we stopped for more sampling at the Inner Sanctum Cellars.
Dinner was a delicious affair at the stunning National Hotel before returning to the Lazy Z.
Tuolumne – pronounced to-all-oh-me – also boasts some rich, fertile meadows and excellent growing conditions for a variety of crops.we stopped for breakfast at Cover’s Apple Ranch, a prolific producer of ciders, run by an extended family of German Baptists who follow a very traditional lifestyle and dress code along the lines of the Amish communities.
Not only do they produce some of the most delicious non-alcoholic ciders you’ll taste they cook up some amazing dishes, most notably their apple dumpling and mile-high apple pie – so-called because it’s stacked like a skyscraper.
Lunch at the St Charles saloon in Columbia was followed by another tasting – this time at the Indigeny Reserve in the hills outside Sonora. The excellent wines, though, are only available in California.
That night we moved on to the Groveland Hotel, a one-time “Sporting House” of the oldwest, where one of the residents forgot to move out. My room just happened to be the one haunted by the ghost of old Lyle, a goldpanner from the early 1900s who used to sleep with a box of dynamite under his bed. He passed away, peacefully, in room 15 but has made his presence felt to guests in that room and elsewhere in the hotel ever since. My two nights were thankfully undisturbed. The adventurous can trek miles and camp in the wilderness but we settled for a long walk along the edge of Hetch Hetchy, the beautiful lake behind the O’shaughnessy Dam which holds back the Toulumne River and provides drinking water for most of the San Francisco Bay area.
Following a superb refreshment stop at Evergreen
Lodge, left – where you can stay in cosy log cabins with all the amenities – it was on to the Tuolumne Grove of Giant Sequoia trees.
Walk the now-closed Big Oak
Flat road, one of the first roads into Yosemite Valley, to view these majestic redwoods which can grow up to 280ft tall and almost 30ft around.the oldest is said to be around 3,500 years old.
It’s a bit of a hike back to the car park but a delicious dinner at Rush Creek Lodge restored our strength. The lodge is a family-friendly resort of rooms, suites and hillside villas with fabulous pool, live music and a multitude of activities. Yosemite had long been on my bucket list and I arrived expecting amazing – but all my expectations were surpassed in a golden wonder.
British Airways flies from Heathrow to San Jose, California, from £269 return. ba.com
Cabins at Lazy Z Resort in Twain Harte from £140 a night. lazyzresort.com Rooms at Groveland Hotel in Groveland from £99 a night. groveland.com
Car hire from San Jose from £25 a day. Hertz.co.uk
More information at visittuolumne.com