Redwoods

Being on a roll with losing things we searched high and low for my room key, before giving up and resigning ourselves to the loss of the $20 deposit. Turned out I'd never taken the key in the first place and that's why I couldn't find it!

We then drove to the Big Basin Redwoods State Park (the first state park established in California), past the spot where four years ago Sorrel and I had wandered aimlessly and seen pitiful redwoods, because we'd didn't have a car. You just can't get to most of these places without one sadly.

These redwoods seemed far more impressive than those at Muir Woods, and looking at them was much less of a tourist circus. One of the trees had its middle burnt out in a forest fire and you could look right up the middle of it at the sky. 'Mother of the forest' is the tallest tree in the park, it did measure 329 feet, but lost its top in a storm. After walking around the redwood trail in the basin where the huge trees are we went on a hike along the river, up the valley, into the chaparral, to the ocean viewpoint and then back down into the redwoods (a round walk!). Whilst walking alongside the river we discovered another bobcat slinking up the path in front of us. It amazes me that there are only a handful of bobcat pictures on the nature picture library website (where Jenny used to work) since we're finding it seemingly easy to discover them.

Once again it was hard to get a true sense of scale and appreciate the great height of the redwoods. To be in the presence of such old and tall trees though is humbling, I can't help but be impressed by them. Jenny though I feel has seen more than enough of the redwoods.

Jenny cruised us along the road to Santa Cruz where we're now staying in the hostel, which stocks its kitchen with a bounty of out-of-date freebies. Although there's no cranberry and grain Christmas special like I had when I was last here there are mountains of radishes, bags of spinach, a packet of mixed organic salad leaves, some cake with a lengthy list of additives, plenty of a-bit-too-green-for-comfort potatoes, onions, loads of carrots, some cabbage, breads in all shapes and sizes (the apple cinammon swirl loaf will make a good breakfast) and quite a bit more. We can't help wondering why we bothered doing a big shop in San Francisco.