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Published: September 5th 2008
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We left the mad world of LA behind us and headed up the coast, hoping for some great weather and some gorgeous scenery. As we drove out of Santa Monica and joined the famous Highway 1, we passed Malibu and other typical Californian beach scenes on the way up to our first stop in Santa Barbara. The real spectacular section of Highway 1 was further up the coast, but Santa Barbara was supposed to be a picture perfect coastal town so seemed like the ideal place to stop.
We soon found out it was also one of the best places to go whale watching, so we quickly booked ourselves on a whale watching boat for the next day. Santa Barbara is not a backpacker town in the slightest, filled with expensive restaurants and designer boutiques... home to a few movie stars we understand, and we could certainly see why they would choose to live here rather than in LA! We enjoyed the time we had in the town, window shopping (as we couldn't afford to buy much!!), strolling the streets and sitting in outdoor cafes and restaurants... it is times like this when we realise that travelling is very hard
sometimes!
The whale watching trip just made our time in Santa Barbara even better! When we booked the trip, there was a notice in the office saying that they had seen 5 Blue Whales, 1 Humpback Whale and 1000s of Dolphins that day... we just hoped we'd see even half of that! We turned up eager on the morning of the trip, with all fingers and toes crossed... and we weren't disappointed! About half way out to the channel, the spotters saw the tail of a Blue Whale in the distance... and soon we were tracking a pair of Blue Whales. Blue whales are believed to be the biggest creature ever to have lived and can grow up to 100ft long and can weigh 170 tonnes, they apparently eat 3,600kg of krill each day, which is the equivalent too about 17,000 Big Macs! At one point they swam directly towards the boat and even though we could only see the very top of the whale we could see how big they were, a lot bigger than the boat we were on! We watched the pair for over an hour diving down to feed for a few minutes and each
time raising their massive tails (called a tail fluke), then popping back up with a massive spout of water before starting to dive again. It is rare to see a Blue Whale tail fluke so often, it was like they were both showing off in front of us and fantastic to see! Soon, we had to leave them to their feeding, to continue our tour around the channel. After circling near one of the off shore islands called Santa Cruz, we headed back to the mainland, passing a massive pod of perhaps hundreds of dolphins, just to round the day of nicely!
We had to leave Santa Barbara, eventually, to continue our journey up Highway 1 and because we couldn't afford to stay much longer! We hit a couple of beaches before reaching Morro Bay where we stopped for the night. This really was the starting point for the best section of Highway 1, so the next day we started the journey north, travelling on winding roads hugging the side of cliffs with the Pacific Ocean far below. There were stopping off points every few minutes, for yet another fantastic photo looking across rugged cliffs down to the deep
blue of the ocean. It certainly was one of the most scenic drives we have done, and thanks to the gorgeous weather and blue sky we had a great day driving through the Big Sur as the area is known.
Unfortunately it was soon over, and we entered back on the usual highways and freeways of America, battling all the traffic, probably most of whom had just come through the Big Sur too. Before getting into San Francisco, we stopped for lunch in a bar by the coast where it must have been the law to use the word “dude” in every sentence at least once! It was so funny to hear their conversations.... dude!! This is how we imagined a typical Californian bar scene would be with surfer dudes, and it turned out to be true!
Soon we were on the wide freeways going into the centre of San Francisco. This was one of the cities that we were most looking forward to, so we decided to spend a bit of time here, hoping to soak up the vibrant atmosphere. We happened to stay near one of the shopping districts near Lombard Street. It reminded us of
Putney in London, just outside of the main city area with nice houses, lots of shops and cool bars so we knew we were going to enjoy our time here!
Two of the main attractions we wanted to see in San Francisco were the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz... unfortunately we didn't get to see either properly! We tried to book a tour out to Alcatraz, but when we got up to the ticket booth we found out all the tours were booked out for the next 7 days!!! Then, even though in the city it was almost cloudless skies, the Golden Gate Bridge was pretty much covered in sea fog for most of the time we were here! We managed to get a hazy picture from Fishermans Wharf one evening, but other than that we didn't see the whole bridge all at once.
Whilst we were in San Francisco, we rented a couple of bikes and rode along the front and across the bridge, so at least we got to see it up close. It was kind of weird riding across, with fog obscuring our view in front and behind, and not being able to see the
top of the columns either sometimes. Once across the other side, we decided to get a ferry back across the bay, so at least we got to see Alcatraz a bit closer up.
Of course, the other thing San Francisco is famous for is hills, and the restored tram network making seemingly impossible journeys up the steep hills. We managed to get the spots on the side of the tram where we could stand up and hang off the side! It was great to ride up and down the hills a couple of times, although it made it pretty exhausting to walk about some parts of the city! We had a walk around Chinatown, which brought back happy memories of our trip around China... which now feels a lifetime ago. We stopped for lunch and enjoyed some fantastic food, again more happy memories... they even had Tsingtao beer but unfortunately not at China prices!!!
We were here when the Olympics started, so we watched some of the coverage on NBC while we could... it was entirely of the USA team however, so we had to rely on the internet for information on the British squad! Most of the
The famous Painted Ladies
The most photographed spot in San Francisco apparently! coverage was never shown live on the west coast, which was both annoying and strange, you would think that the Olympics were important enough to be aired live!!!
We really enjoyed our time in the city, and it certainly was the best city we have visited in the States. We could have spent much longer here, exploring the fascinating streets and enjoying more great restaurants and cafes, but we had to get to Yosemite National Park during the week to try and avoid some of the crowds at the weekend, so reluctantly had to say 'see you later' to San Francisco, as we are both sure we will be back sometime!
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