From San Francisco to Point Reyes National Seashore (13th of December)

When we’d finally managed to make our way from the hostel to the budget rent a car, got away again with having no credit card but a sellotaped together debit car and got them to sign off the scrape the car had, we drove out of San Francisco in our huge white mafia truck (not an SUV but still..). Going over the golden gate bridge and up the hill beyond on the highway shared with another five lanes was somewhat terrifying. But we were soon on the smaller and very windy road heading to Muir Woods, admiring birds of prey and purchasing figs from a roadside stall. Muir Woods is one of the few remaining forest fragments of tall trees- coastal redwoods or Sequoia sempervirens. The redwoods are the tallest trees in the world.

Pulling into the second overflow car park we realised we were not alone in wanting to visit the redwood grove on yet another sunny day. The entrance fee into the park was $5 per person. As we sat eating our lunch loads of people emerged from the grove at once and we unknowingly both calculated their worth to the national park ($80). An Englishman, his two teenagers and a little squirt received a blank look from the ticket office man after asking if they would be able to push a buggy on the path, he got there in the end though and concluded the trail wasn’t ‘strollerable’. The trees themselves were majestic and smelt pleasant, but it was hard to get perspective and realise how tall the trees really were. As it says in ‘The Wild Trees’ book that I read a few months ago, you can only truly appreciate these trees while climbing them. A fallen down tree though gave a bit more of an idea as to how tall these trees really are.

Leaving the well-trodden tourist path behind we headed up the side of the valley passing many lichens on the ground which must have been blown from the very tops of the trees in the fierce winds that California apparently had a week ago. Unfortunately there was no longer a view from the Ocean Trail, due (as we found out from a sign when we’d finished it) to fire prevention (we might have to Google how this works..). After our walk we headed to our destination of Point Reyes hostel via a very windy road in ever increasing darkness. As we drove through the national seashore we spotted two deer and a bobcat.