6th August - Custer State Park and Hill City

Today we went to Custer State Park. It is huge. You can probably fit the whole of Auckland inside the park. We saw 2 herds of buffalo. It is an impressive animal. When you enter the park there is signs telling visitors to not get to close to them. I can understand why. It is a very powerful looking animal. We got out of the car to take some photos and we saw some other people that were closer to them than us so we walk closer as well. After we had taken some photos a park employee came up to us advising us to move away from the buffalos so maybe we were a bit close. Got some good photos though.

We also came across some donkeys (they are called Burros here). The are not native but were used to take people up a mountain. When they stopped using them they were let loose in the park. I got a few photos of them but they are a bit naughty looking, so we will keep them to ourselves....

We also saw some sort of deer but didn't get any photos of them. In another part of the park there are some magnificent mountain views (one specifical part is called the needles).

There were several one lane tunnels that you drive through and also in places the road has been split so that there are quite some distance between the 2 lanes. Interesting. The road had a lot of turns (actually enjoyed that) and it wasn't that wide so Grant really had to focus on the driving. So I think I saw more than he did. Lucky we have a few photos for him to look at.

We both thought that some parts of the park looked like Sweden (the forest part of the park) and some part as New Zealand (The green rolling hills)

I was chatting wih Valerie last night and she told me that when they drove through the park they burst into "How Great Thou Art". Well, we didn't BUT we were listening to the Piano guys and one of the songs was......."How Great Thou Art!!! What a coincidence aye.

We then drove to Hill City. In New Zealand we would call it a town not a city. It really looks like a Wild West or Goldrush town. There were several 100's of motorcycles there. Before I came here I always looked twice when I saw a Harley Davidson but now it is just a big yawn...

My camera ran out of juice after I took some photos there, but I managed to get a photo of the steam locomotive as well. The train runs between Keystone and Hill City and the steam engine is from 1880. We will take that trip tomorrow.