Salvation Mountain. How to choose just a handful of images from such a wonderful place? We drove four hours to Niland, right in the Californian desert, close to Saltan Sea. We had seen pictures, but the real thing was so much more exciting.

Leonard Knight has spent 18 years painting the side of a mountain. He coats the surface with adobe clay and then paints over it with whatever paint he has at hand or is given. And then paints it again. And again. He is a religious fanatic, but his approach is joyous and fun. We met him there, twenty feet up the side of a pile of hay boulders, preparing his next extension to this extraordinary place. He was welcoming and charming, wanting to show us what he was about. His new found fame is obviously a great joy to him, as he is convinced that it is helping him promote the 'Lords work'. He has no electricity and, more amazingly, no running water, so I can't imagine how he mixes his adobe clay. He showed us that it comes straight off the mountain surface and just needs water to turn it into the basis for all his artwork.

In one of the pictures of him, you will see the flowers which are so important to him. Each one is made of a lump of adobe - which he then punches in the centre. You can see his fist in every one!

We stayed at a not wonderful hotel, recommended on the Salvation Mountain web site, but it was probably the best you would find in the area. The next day we went to look at the sand dunes, fifty miles away. Most American desert is rather disappointingly scrubby. This was a bit better. It has become a resort activity to take your special vehicles there and race them on the dunes. We saw two, but they were being protected, under sunshades, by shaven headed 'good old boys". Didn't dare take a picture in case they shot us!

As you can probably tell, the mountain was a real high spot of our trip, and I hope that we might have encouraged some of you to make the big trek someday. By the way, it was 110 degrees in the desert!