Thursday 27 September 2007

Giant Trees, Beaches and colds

Why is it that when we get into California we both get colds?! We've spent the past month travelling through Alaska and Canada without a sniffle, but get to California and fall appart! Oh well, never mind, we're still making the most of the holiday, just with lemsips instead of beers.

Following the Lave Beds we travelled back towards the coast towards the Redwoods National and State Parks. We stopped for some shopping on the way and realised, in America, a Defender 110 is classed as a 'compact', classic! lol!



Taking advice from a helpful chap at the last campsite we stopped off at the nothern point of the Redwoods to take a little stroll. These forests are amazing - made up of the Californian Redwoods and the giant seqouia (sp?!) the booklets say you feel like dinosours may come through the undergrowth and that's exactly how you feel! The trees can live upto 2000 years old and the thick ferns on the floors add to the mysterious feeling.

We spent the rest of hte day driving down the 101 taking in the views and hiking a few trails, I decided to take up tree hugging, but not a hope of working with this one. We also discovered there is only 1 type of tree you can loosing a Camel behind.


As the evening drew in we discovered the Golden Bluffs campsite - sigh. It was fantastic! A state park, so it cost us about £7 a night and we got to spend our first two nights in California on the beech. Dan celebrated by practising his Kung-Foo on the beech, lol!


The next day, I was still feeling pretty terrible, so we had a relaxing morning on the beech checking out the views and enjoying the sun. In the afternoon we got a pass to travel down the restricted road to the tall trees grove, it also involved a hike of 1.6miles downhill and 1.6miles back up again, but this is where there really large trees are, the second tallest tree in the world (only by 1ft!), it was peaceful and amazing, well worth the sweat on the way back up.

Today we're heading towards Lake Taho, for a bit of biking before heading down towards Yosmite and into Napa Valley (wine Country) and San Francisco, where we meet up with Mum and Ron for a couple of days - they're bringing Dairy Milk - Wahoo!

This was our first night we couldn't find a campsite where we're staying, so have taken our second motel. Why does that always happen at the end of the financial month?!

Not sure on internet access for the next few days, but will update when we can. Glad to hear seven sisters went well, we were going to annoy you all with Text Messages, but have had no signal for over a week! (back now). Oh, we did a bit of graffitti on the beach as well:

5 comments:

The Farter said...

God dam!! Who are these lucky buggers, even if they do have snotty colds, and have to spend a few nights sleeping on the beach, life is a real drag sometimes.
Regards to Joyce (and Ron?). Keep sending the messages, or else we may have to come over to see you!!!!!!!
You think your having fun ? we went to Ireland! so there.

The Farter said...

Shit Jen, that is one big cuddle.

Unknown said...

Love the beach-logo, may have to use that on the summer edition of the newsletter :D

Margery said...

Glad to be able to catch up on the blog at last - we were getting withdrawal symptoms! Like the graffiti! see you soon! I might part with the CDM....or I might not! ...Hmmmmm we'll have to wait and see!

The Farter said...

How did you do that clever drawing in the sand without leaving footie prints everywhere, bit like corn circles I suppose!