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Published: September 5th 2006
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alcatraz
The island of Alcatraz Well it's been 10 days since I've updated this but as I've been in a desert without communication for the last week, it's not surprising. So after I left Hawaii I landed in San Francisco on the 23rd of August and checked in to the Green tortoise hostel. On the 24th I caught a ferry tour out to Angel island (an island for mostly chinese immagrants into the US in the mid 20th century) and then Alcatraz which everyone should know about. It was really cool walking around alcatraz and doing the audio tour of the cells which tells you the history and where some of the more famous people (such as Al Capone) where held.
That night a mate from Perth who has been travelling the world for 6 months arrived so we went out with a whole heap of the hostel guys for drinks late into the night. strangely enough, the 25th was spent feeling rather flat :😊 so Jed and I walked around the city a bit and saw Coit tower, the windy street with heaps of flower beds, fishermans warf, etc. On the 26th Jed and I hired bikes in the morning and rode around the city
cells
Jail cells at Alcatraz which given how steep the hills are (movies don't do them justice when you're riding a bike up them) is not easy. Anyway, we went to little Japan, Haight Ashbury (which is the hippy part of town and pretty cool and funny) then right through Golden Gate park where a medieval festival was being held. Then we were at the beach looking at the north pacific ocean and rode along trails into the Golden Gate. Btw, the Golden Gate is the channel of water where the San Fran bay enters the ocean. Then we rode to and over the Golden Gate Bridge then back and into town where we had "lunch" at about 3pm after riding since 9am! And took the bikes back. When we got back to the hostel, the rest of our friends had arrived (tho they didn't come and tell us they were at the pub til 5ish!) so we all sat around chatting about travels and stuff for a few hours. On the 27th, we all went out to Haight Ashbury around lunch time cause Hana wanted to do some shopping for burning man out there and the rest of us just walked around the shops
me in SF
Spinning my poi with the golden gate bridge in the background towards the end of a day long bike ride for a while before ending up in the pub chatting.
On the 28th, we got up really early and went to budget to pick up our hire car to drive out to Burning Man. As I'd driven on the wrong side of the road most recently, I got the first driving shift and driving around san fran is interesting though I only spun the wheels once on a steep hill! Once all 5 of us and our gear was in the car, we were o the road to Reno Nevada by 9. It was a pretty easy drive once we were on the highway cause we didn't have to turn off it until after Reno. Once in Reno though, we needed to stock up on enough food and water to survive for a week camping in the desert cause the nearest shops where 20 minutes away from where 35,000 people (including us) were camping and there's no guarentee they'll have what you want. By the time the car was packed up in Reno tho, the rear axel was sitting close to the ground but there was little we could do about it and Angus drove the rest of the way.
Golden Gate Bridge
The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco By the time we got through all the traffic into roughly the spot where we were supposed to be camping, it was well after dark but we got set up and the following morning we worked out where we were camping exactly and set up camp permantly. We were really lucky to be camped within 100m of centre camp which is probably the best spot on the playa (dry lake bed) to be camped!
For those I haven't already told, burning man is an arts festival held yearly in the Black Rock desert 2 hours north of Reno Nevada. The week at Burning Man was amazing. I met heaps of cool people and had fun doing some fire twirling and various random activities (like dance dance immolation which is the playstation game dance dance revolution but when you stuff up, a flame thrower shoots flame at you but you wear a fire proof suit so it's all good!). It was really dustly there tho and there were regular dust storms where you couldn't see far in front of you so i wasn't game to take my camera out of it's bag. Especially as one lens is already grinding when I
Lombard st
Lombard St in San Fran as seen from Coit Tower change the zoom probably thanks to some volcanic dust in Hawaii!
Anyway, after fighting traffic yesterday from 7am til 5pm, we made it back to san fran with us and the car all in one piece. Being the monday of a long weekend, everyone was on the road so it was slow going much of the time.
Today will be spent trying to clean most of the dust out of all my gear and then tomorrow lunchtime I fly to London for the next leg of my trip. Oh, while I remember, I've signed a new contract for a job. I'll be working for a junior exploration company called Polaris Metals and be based in Perth with field work on an as needed basis though given how many new tenements they have aquired recently, I imagine there will be quite a bit. I start on the monday after I get back from my holiday so there won't be much recovery time but, as they say, you can sleep when you're dead! I hope all is well back in Aus.
Have fun,
Chris.
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Tim
non-member comment
Hey mate
G'day mate!! sounds like you are having an awesome time away. congratulations on your new job but yeah party it up while you can. cheers Tim