Blog 30: California Dreamin'

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The drive from Kings Canyon to San Francisco was pretty uneventful, which was a good thing considering the state of the roads. We arrived at our new RV park which was right next to Monster Park. Those American Football fans amongst you will know that this is the home of the San Francisco 49ers. Called 49ers due to the mass influx of people and prospectors into San Francisco when gold was discovered in 1849; just as well they didn’t find the precious metal 20 years later!!

So what can we tell you about San Francisco? Well, it’s certainly up there with the best of ‘em. There are two things you simply must have to live in SF; great calf muscles and/or a bloody good handbrake. These streets are steep! Far too steep for our RV, so we would get a shuttle bus downtown and then hop aboard the trusty trams. It gets bitterly cold here in the evenings, even in June, so bring a coat!

We had a city tour, ashamedly touristy I know, but a great way to see various parts of this city in a short space of time and without all that hill climbing. Places like North Beach (Italian part of town), Chinatown (every famous city has one), Pacific Heights (very expensive, but a beautiful area to live), and oh yes, a bridge - the stunning Golden Gate Bridge.

We joined the locals down at Fisherman’s Wharf and had clam chowder for breakfast, served in a bread bowl. We stopped and laughed at the ‘Bushman’s’ antics whilst on our way to Pier 39. The ‘Bushman’ sits all day hidden behind two bushy branches that he holds to conceal him from oncoming, unsuspecting tourists. With long practised expert timing he parts the two branches, shouting as he does so, which 99% of the time has the desired effect of the victims jumping out of their skin. Of course everybody who’s aware of what’s about to happen finds it highly amusing and film it from across the street, and the Bushman relies completely on the generosity of those filming, in the shape of a dollar or two for the captured performance.

Pier 39 is one of the many piers on the water’s edge of San Francisco Bay and houses restaurants and tourist shops. However, much more entertaining and worthwhile, is standing on Pier 39 and watching the resident sea-lions who have claimed the pier’s docks as their own. They really draw a crowd with their antics, and the more boisterous males each try to lay claim to a number of wooden jetties, shoving each other off in an ongoing game of pontoon sumo.

Of course, no visit to SF is complete without a trip across the cold water of the bay to a small island that became the most infamous maximum security penitentiary, and a place that Al Capone called home; Alcatraz.
The audio tour is brilliant as you’re guided around by an ex-prison officer talking through your headphones, explaining different areas and daily prison life as well as some of the more memorable moments, including attempted escapes. Sam happened to buy a book she was interested in about the ‘Birdman’. As luck would have it, the author was there that day and signed it for her, adding that it was signed on Alcatraz which was a nice touch.
We could have stayed for another few days in SF, it’s a great city with bags of character, but awaiting us was one of the most famous scenic drives in the world; California’s Highway 1.

We took a few days to cruise down this rugged, idyllic stretch of Pacific coastline, watching kite surfers in Santa Cruz while parked up for lunch. We passed through the dreamy towns of Monterey and Carmel, where Clint Eastwood was once mayor. We took the famously scenic 17 Mile Drive that connects the aforementioned towns, where those wealthy enough to afford the property prices reap the benefits of location, location, location - with views of either the Pacific Ocean, manicured fairways, or both, as the immaculate golf courses (including the great Pebble Beach GC) flirt with the coastline.
There are also large colonies of both seals and sea birds here, as well as an increasing number of sea otters which we watched feeding in the surf. They surface and lay on their backs during a brief lull in the waves, whilst balancing a pebble on their belly that they smash molluscs against in order to break the shell and devour what‘s inside. It wasn’t all work for the otters though, as others we saw were just kicking back held up on calmer waters by the thick kelp forests beneath.

Next came Big Sur, which has to be the highlight of Highway 1, with it’s elevated road hundreds of feet above the ocean that crashes on the rocks below. You really hug the edge here which is why we wanted to do the drive from north to south, to really get the benefit of those hair raising bends and views. Bridges span gorges and every now and then there is a small secluded cove with a pristine beach. A tempting swim awaits, but it pays to know that although South Africa has the greatest population of Great White Sharks, it’s off the Californian coast where most Great White attacks occur.

If a lone swimmer or surfer represents a snack to a Great White, and the fur seal colony on the coast of 17 Mile Drive could be considered a larder, what we stopped off to see at Point Piedras Blancas must surely be a banquet. Here, you’ll find a massive population of elephant seals, and although only young males were present at this time, some of them are huge. They’re not very active at the moment because they are here to moult, but they are still as amusing to watch as their smaller cousins at Pier 39 in San Francisco.
Although they are a little more tolerant of each other on a wide stretch of lovely beach, it’s still inevitable that some get a bit grumpy. When you’re an elephant seal you don’t go the long way round or say excuse me, you just caterpillar your heaving mass over whatever is in your way - and that doesn’t always go down too well with whoever’s underneath. Also, they cover themselves in sand but never think to look who may be in the way and sometimes the sand is just flippered (another made-up word) into another seal’s face. Within the surf some of the unruly males would mock fight, but most would just chill out on the beach snoring and belching.

Next we made a little detour to a very bizarre but quaint place; Solvang. If the name sounds a bit Scandinavian, that’s because it is. Solvang is a little slice of Denmark in southwest California, where the Danes can live with familiar surroundings and home comforts, but without the cold weather.

Our coastal drive came to an end as we headed eastwards and inland just south of Santa Barbara. We would now lose those cooling sea breezes that made for comfortable sleeping while perched up on those cliff top lay-bys. But the with the heat comes a different landscape that should make for some good pictures in the next few blogs as we get stuck into some more of those amazing National Parks………

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