Visalia’s origins day back to the early 1850’s when it flourished as a service town for all the miners streaming into the goldfields further north. California’s gold fields attracted hopefuls from around the world, including Australia. When the gold ran out here, many went to new finds in Australia, particularly the Palmer River Gold Fields just north-west of Cairns. As the gold fields dried here in California, the Civil War came to town and that was great for business as well. Today Visalia is a service town for the rich agricultural and horticultural surrounds, with a population if about 125,000 people. It is also an important administrative centre for the County of Tulare. It’s a pretty town and you can see the Sierra Nervarda mountains, home of my briends the Giant Sequoias, in the background. There is plenty going on and there are huge cars everywhere. I must get photos of these things because some of the cars are just to ridiculous to believe.
I spend the day here organising the next part of my trip. I’m going to bus to a place called Barstow that sits on the edge of the Mojave Desert. I will stay here for two nights to have a look around before heading for Vegas.
Life is cheaper here in the USA when compared to Australia. Petrol is around 75 cents per litre (and they complain about that), fruit here is beautiful and cheap (eg. a large punnit of sweet organic strawberries for $3), movies are $7.50, I could have bought my camera here for half the price I paid back home.
angusmccoll 
Hey Angus, great to hear about the walks in the NPs, and the bears! Hope the flu didn’t hit you too hard. You know Richard almost got a job at UCLA in Merced about 6 years ago? All fine here. Do you know the rugby world cup starts in 2 weeks? How will you follow it in the US?
Cheers from Angela and the Lansdowns
Hi Angela, no I didn’t know that you could have been living in Merced. It’s a very new campus and quite impressive looking. Merced seems like a nice town and located next to the Sierras.
I certainly won’t get any coverage of the Rugby World Cup here, even though the Yanks don’t do to badly in the comp. I do have a ‘Wallabies’ app on my phone that will keep me up to date!
Speaking of a new camera, this blog is lacking in photos…
Yeah, sorry. I can’t get photos from my camera so I need to take pics with the phone and I always forget! I will try nag get my act together!