Short Version:
We ride, drive, and swim, then watch the sun set
Long Version:
With a long day ahead of us, we were up and breaking camp early while woodpeckers squabbled in the trees overhead. The lower parking lot had been occupied - tents on the gravel and all - by several Mexican families while we were in the city, which explained the music we'd heard when we returned.
We were on the road by 0830, in San Rafael by 0930, and riding in the China Camp State Park by 1030. The park borders San Pablo Bay* on one side, and the affluent fringes of San Rafael on the other. Several miles of mixed-use, wide, non-technical singletrack make it well worth a visit, although the presence of hikers mean there are many signs enumerating cyclist speed limits** and the ease of riding - both technical and gradient - suited our tired, sore legs*** perfectly! Lots of flowing stuff along the ridgelines on the back of an easy climb, some sweet descending back to the Reaper. A nice ride. And we saw an ENORMOUS squirrel.
We'd planned to swim in the Bay after the ride, but the salt flats area is a protected natural environment (and crap for swimming), and every beach parking lot had a significant fee. And a ranger to enforce payment. So we hit San Rafael's Starbucks**** for caffeine and internets, and then Trader Joe's for jalapeno cheese, then we hit the road north, heading for the King Range National Conservation Area, aka The Lost Coast.
The inland Highway 101 is a pretty fast road, although not as fast as the massive Interstate highways. The 116, linking westwards from the 101 to the coastal Highway 1 is not so fast, and it took hours to get to the coast. Along the way we spied a bunch of really pretty and/or interesting towns, many of which had 4th of July activities going on. There were cherries for sale at roadside stalls*****, river beaches packed with revellers, and really pretty forest areas.
When we reached the coast, it wasn't there; fog had eaten it. It was really rather strange to have bright sunlight and blue sky up to our right, then to be alternately in or looking down on clouds to our left. More than anything, it was like being in - or, in my case, piloting - an aeroplane.
Reaper Air is go!
The bits of coastline we did see were awesome, with cliffs and s
pits of land protruding into a rock-strewn, turbulent ocean. Looked a lot like pictures we've seen of the wilder parts of the coasts of Scotland and Ireland, and some of the towns had names like Irish Beach******. There was a Hokitika resemblance as well, and not just because it was cold and cloudy; huge piles of driftwood had accumulated on many of the stretches of sand. We stopped at one for a swim, although the total absence of anyone more than shin deep in the water was a worry - is it wild currents? Enormous sharks? Submarine slavery ships? Actually, it was just cold. Really, really cold. Absolutely freezing. My legs were in actual physical pain from the cold before I was in to my knees. Details of the agonies incurred with each progressive body-part immersion are probably not necessary - suffice to say that I swam, albeit very, very briefly, and then we drove north some more, for a long time, at the tail end of a rapidly-departing day. In the end, we stopped for the night at Abalone Point, well short of our planned destination. Before we did, though, we saw a naughty dog being herded off the highway by a Highway Patrol cruiser, and then another dog, bounding across the highway at an oblique angle. Except it looked a lot like a cat. But it was the size of a dog. Runs like a cat. Size of a dog. Cat ears. Dog size. Cat everything, dog size. Bobcat! Very cool.
Abalone Point was a clifftop spot with a wind whipping through it, beautiful views out over the ocean to the setting sun, and a post-apocalyptic-looking half a road at the cliff edge. It had obviously been eaten by the sea some time ago, as plants were growing on the exposed faces, but it still didn`t look entirely stable. Other campers obviously thought it looked stable enough, though, as they were sitting on the edge to watch the sun set. Of course, these same other campers were seen to get in their enormous pickup trucks, fire up the enormous engines, idle them until warm, then drive 30m to another campsite for a chat before driving back to their own site. A few of them set off a few small July 4th fireworks, but nothing loud enough to stop us falling asleep early, having enjoyed a glass of organic, sulphide-free Californian red while watching the sun go down.
There were critters under our tent - trapped by an impregnable ceiling of tarpaulin! - which kept waking me up with their plant-root-eating and their attempts to chew their way to freedom through the floor of our tent directly beneath my head. Apart from that, though, we slept well, and were up bright and early into heavy fog and chilly, wet air, for breakfast and departure, to the King Range and the Lost Coast, and maybe somewhere to ride our bikes.
* = From whence Primus used to pull stripers.
** = Janine was breaking them on the way up the hills.
*** = Turns out BOTH of us had started the San Fran expedititon with legs complaining vociferously about the previous day's running activities. Difference was that, while I whined about it, Lovely Wife just hiked stoically onwards.
**** = Starbucks = evil, yes. And Starbucks in NZ = comparatively crap coffee. Starbucks in the USA, however, is the most consistently good coffee we`ve found, and they have internet access in their stores. I'll go back to shunning them any time I'm in NZ.
***** = Janine ate so many she got a stomachache, which was pretty funny.
****** = It was a town at the top of a cliff with rocks at the bottom.
We ride, drive, and swim, then watch the sun set
Long Version:
With a long day ahead of us, we were up and breaking camp early while woodpeckers squabbled in the trees overhead. The lower parking lot had been occupied - tents on the gravel and all - by several Mexican families while we were in the city, which explained the music we'd heard when we returned.
We were on the road by 0830, in San Rafael by 0930, and riding in the China Camp State Park by 1030. The park borders San Pablo Bay* on one side, and the affluent fringes of San Rafael on the other. Several miles of mixed-use, wide, non-technical singletrack make it well worth a visit, although the presence of hikers mean there are many signs enumerating cyclist speed limits** and the ease of riding - both technical and gradient - suited our tired, sore legs*** perfectly! Lots of flowing stuff along the ridgelines on the back of an easy climb, some sweet descending back to the Reaper. A nice ride. And we saw an ENORMOUS squirrel.
We'd planned to swim in the Bay after the ride, but the salt flats area is a protected natural environment (and crap for swimming), and every beach parking lot had a significant fee. And a ranger to enforce payment. So we hit San Rafael's Starbucks**** for caffeine and internets, and then Trader Joe's for jalapeno cheese, then we hit the road north, heading for the King Range National Conservation Area, aka The Lost Coast.
The inland Highway 101 is a pretty fast road, although not as fast as the massive Interstate highways. The 116, linking westwards from the 101 to the coastal Highway 1 is not so fast, and it took hours to get to the coast. Along the way we spied a bunch of really pretty and/or interesting towns, many of which had 4th of July activities going on. There were cherries for sale at roadside stalls*****, river beaches packed with revellers, and really pretty forest areas.
When we reached the coast, it wasn't there; fog had eaten it. It was really rather strange to have bright sunlight and blue sky up to our right, then to be alternately in or looking down on clouds to our left. More than anything, it was like being in - or, in my case, piloting - an aeroplane.
Reaper Air is go!
The bits of coastline we did see were awesome, with cliffs and s
pits of land protruding into a rock-strewn, turbulent ocean. Looked a lot like pictures we've seen of the wilder parts of the coasts of Scotland and Ireland, and some of the towns had names like Irish Beach******. There was a Hokitika resemblance as well, and not just because it was cold and cloudy; huge piles of driftwood had accumulated on many of the stretches of sand. We stopped at one for a swim, although the total absence of anyone more than shin deep in the water was a worry - is it wild currents? Enormous sharks? Submarine slavery ships? Actually, it was just cold. Really, really cold. Absolutely freezing. My legs were in actual physical pain from the cold before I was in to my knees. Details of the agonies incurred with each progressive body-part immersion are probably not necessary - suffice to say that I swam, albeit very, very briefly, and then we drove north some more, for a long time, at the tail end of a rapidly-departing day. In the end, we stopped for the night at Abalone Point, well short of our planned destination. Before we did, though, we saw a naughty dog being herded off the highway by a Highway Patrol cruiser, and then another dog, bounding across the highway at an oblique angle. Except it looked a lot like a cat. But it was the size of a dog. Runs like a cat. Size of a dog. Cat ears. Dog size. Cat everything, dog size. Bobcat! Very cool.Abalone Point was a clifftop spot with a wind whipping through it, beautiful views out over the ocean to the setting sun, and a post-apocalyptic-looking half a road at the cliff edge. It had obviously been eaten by the sea some time ago, as plants were growing on the exposed faces, but it still didn`t look entirely stable. Other campers obviously thought it looked stable enough, though, as they were sitting on the edge to watch the sun set. Of course, these same other campers were seen to get in their enormous pickup trucks, fire up the enormous engines, idle them until warm, then drive 30m to another campsite for a chat before driving back to their own site. A few of them set off a few small July 4th fireworks, but nothing loud enough to stop us falling asleep early, having enjoyed a glass of organic, sulphide-free Californian red while watching the sun go down.
There were critters under our tent - trapped by an impregnable ceiling of tarpaulin! - which kept waking me up with their plant-root-eating and their attempts to chew their way to freedom through the floor of our tent directly beneath my head. Apart from that, though, we slept well, and were up bright and early into heavy fog and chilly, wet air, for breakfast and departure, to the King Range and the Lost Coast, and maybe somewhere to ride our bikes.
* = From whence Primus used to pull stripers.
** = Janine was breaking them on the way up the hills.
*** = Turns out BOTH of us had started the San Fran expedititon with legs complaining vociferously about the previous day's running activities. Difference was that, while I whined about it, Lovely Wife just hiked stoically onwards.
**** = Starbucks = evil, yes. And Starbucks in NZ = comparatively crap coffee. Starbucks in the USA, however, is the most consistently good coffee we`ve found, and they have internet access in their stores. I'll go back to shunning them any time I'm in NZ.
***** = Janine ate so many she got a stomachache, which was pretty funny.
****** = It was a town at the top of a cliff with rocks at the bottom.
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