I’m so glad I decided not to travel down to Humbolte last night. Most of the sites were either taken or reserved by 2.30 pm so I would have been turned around or had to try and camp illegally in the Park. They really don’t like you doing that here! I had an jaw dropping ride in along the Avenue of the Giants. It’s a very good description – giants they are, so tall and high. The National Parks are really well set up in the US and cater for everyone, from backpackers to huge RV’s and, of course, motorcyclists. This includes day facilities and opportunities to camp right in the middle of where the action is.
The camping is pretty impressive. They had 250 sites, but you’d never have known that many people were there. Every site had a food locker, fire pit and picnic table and they were massive. A decent shower after a day’s riding is also very welcome. You had to buy wood – definitely no collecting allowed. I had lots of nice neighbours who I ended up meeting. Getting away in the mornings is proving very difficult though. Everyone wants to know who you are and where you’re going. The questions are always the same, but it’s hard to ignore nice people who are genuinely interested in what you are doing, or be too short with them. One woman accused her husband of having bike envy. I got a few furry visitors as well.
I was set up by a bit after lunch and off I went to explore. I only had 3 or 4 hours as the sun couldn’t get through the trees and it was dark early. I’d ridden into the park through a significant mist. This is essential for these forests – without them, they wouldn’t exist. It’s for this reason that the redwoods are relatively close to the coast and why there are only a few places in North America they grow.
I bought supplies in Fortuna and enjoyed an Aussie dinner of bacon, eggs, fried tomato, two fruits and liquorice.
Breakfast was exactly the same as dinner and then it was back into the forest. I rode around on the bike – such a good way to ‘sightsee’. It’s nice being able to go where you want to and not be constrained by having to walk large distances or rely on public transport. I did plenty of that in my 20’s. There were lots of trails where I did hoof it though and there was so much to see. The trees were huge and the height of them was like nothing I’ve seen before.
The trees I was seeing were what was left after several centuries of logging – and the really big ones had been cut out.
A number of trees had been blown over, leaving a mass of splintered timber or huge trunks laying on the forest floor. They create their own ecosystems, of course, with mosses and little explosions of green all over them.
I could have spent a week in this these forests but, after doing another push up challenge video, I reluctantly went back to my campsite and packed it up around 3.00 pm, continuing down the Avenue of Giants for another dozen miles until I got onto Highway 101.
I only had about 5 miles of this before heading off and due west to Shelter Cove. This is part of the Lost Coast and I wasn’t expecting much, other than maybe a gas station and a poorly stocked convenience store. The redwoods continued, surprisingly, and the road rose quite steeply with the riding being much more interesting than I expected. As I descended into the cove, I looked over the Pacific Ocean and all I could see was a blue sky that abruptly turned into mist. It was a perfect example of what had created these wonderful forests.
As I rode into it, the heavy, moist, swirling air had an eerie serenity – it was quite startling actually and riding through the town, this feeling was even further enhanced. The temperature dropped at least 15 degrees as I got close to the shore – it had changed from a pretty hot steamy afternoon to a dry cool 7 or 8 degrees. I ended up going down to a beach where the parking was quite peculiar. It only allowed for disabled parking and there was a sharp turn to the left just as you got to it. I pulled up a bit confused, having gone past an SUV that was stopped by the side of the road. As I headed off to the left, it came after me, blasting it’s horn. Thinking I must have been going down a one way street or something, I pulled up. The car stopped abreast of me and the woman in the passenger seat turned and stared vacantly in my direction with crazy bloodshot eyes. Alarm bells started ringing! The male driver had got out and was silently, purposely and aggressively moving around the car towards me, not responding to what I was saying, ‘Everything OK – what’s up?’. When he staggered and fell flat on his face as he rounded the front of the vehicle, I let out the clutch (I’d been riding it) and headed off. I seriously hadn’t done a thing other than ride past what I thought was a parked car. A couple of stoners smashed off their heads. Nice.
I stopped quite a bit further on at the lighthouse (there was no way the pair I’d just seen would have even been able to drive, let alone follow me) and could hear sea lions roaring. There were steps down onto the beach and, around the headland, there they were in the distance. There was a woman taking photos and, when I suggested we climb down to see if we could pat one of them, she didn’t get the Aussie Joke Tornado’s sense of humour and got stuck into me for even ‘considering’ it.
There was a pretty big fishing community in the town – turns out abalone is a big deal. The actual cove (I was to be riding along the top of the cliffs above it later) stretched away to the south and was shrouded in a secretive mist. Hey, that wasn’t bad – maybe I should be an author – another joke 😉
I pulled into Mario’s Bar and Motel. It was about 5.00 pm by this time and normally I’d have had at least 2 hours more of daylight. It was getting pretty gloomy and dark though, so I asked people what the Chemise Mountain and Usal Road’s were like? I’d worked out that I had about 50 km of the Sinkyone Wilderness in front of me and had a feeling that it could be pretty rough and isolated. Turned out it hadn’t had any maintenance for several years which, with snow and winter, meant it would be in pretty poor repair. They strongly and very raucously (there’d been a funeral that afternoon) advised that I wait until morning as ‘you’ll be on your own when you go down there buddy’. I didn’t really expect it would be as bad as all that, but common sense said to hold off until morning.
I booked into Mario’s (dodgy as hell – the worst and most expensive room of the trip) and went up to the Delgada Pizza and Bakery for dinner where I had a cheese pizza with bacon and mushrooms. This food would kill me if I lived here! A massive, overweight Asian guy in a Ferrari, yeah, a Ferrari, turned up with with the hottest looking Italian girlfriend in tow. We started talking during the ‘hour’ wait and she said they were from somewhere I’d have never heard of, Fortuna. Yup, been there! ‘What about you?’ she asked. ‘Australia’. She just stared unblinkingly at me, put her hand over her mouth and said ‘that is sooooooooooo cool’. A fist bump, a pretty smile and she was gone.
As, soon after, was the pizza.
Adventure USA 