After leaving Manchester the riding seemed to get hard! The terrain was very hilly, and despite it being California the inland was so hot that it had a big effect on the coast so there was lots of fog...cold chilly damp fog. Because of the fog there wasnt much to look at so mentally it was a hard slog through some hilly terrrain to our next camp at woodside state park.So we peddeld on and arrived at camp which turned out to be really nice, just us and 1 other tourer and the woodland, we lit a big fire and toasted marshmellows and enjoyed the evening.
The next day the ride got a little better, an easy ride to bodega bay, the weather was slightly better, and we arrived at camp early, we both felt much better todays, 1 because of the better ride and also because we were 1 day closer to San Fran! That evenong we met a bunch of other tourers, 1 guy called Carl from Long Beach, Carl was a cool guy and offord to let us stay at his house at Long Beach.
The next couple of days were great, we were both exited about San Fran and the riding was good, heading inland we hit some nice warm weather, some easy riding on rolling hills. We stopped at a nice little town called point rayes station, cruised around and ate pancakes (not at the same time of course).
That evening we camped at samuel p tayler camp ground, about 30 miles outside of sanfran. The site was great, set in the red woods we met a few other local tourers had another fire and Fe had her first taste of local raw oysters...it was pretty salty! Luckily the racoons didnt eat all our food either as they are quite renound for being mischievious and in vast numbers in samuel p!!
The final ride before sanfran was easy, we set off at 7am, cycled through some nice towns and hit san fram at about 11am after some interesting navigation through suburban america!
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| Carl, the dude from Long beach, We are starying with his partner karren |
San Fransico, what a crazy city. On our ride through san fran we couldnt find the hostel, we knew it was on Mason sreet which is ok on either side but the middle was a massive steep hill, so we went up it...and then down the other side, the up part wasnt so fun, this hill was crazy, but going down was awesome! We found the hostel on the other end of the street, right in the centre of downtown san fran. We have had a nice couple of days here, we have been to some great american diners and had all kinds of shrimp at bubba gumps, awesome! We mostly cycled arond the city as its quite big and there was just too much choice with transport and its free to pedal! We did the tourist thin, spending time at peier 39, visiting the aquarium which was cool and watched a movie in the evening at the cinema and seeing black dolphins in the bay from the golden gate bridge was pretty special. The city is really busy, mostly tourists but its bike freindly, lots of bike routes and on flatter areas bikes seem to rule the road. san Fran was a bit of a cultre shock at first as we were used to the friendly laid back camp grounds but its been a good few days........we are looking foward to getting back on the road though...600 miles to go!
