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Published: August 9th 2008
The Coastal Redwoods
These trees are just on the side of the road as you pass through the 'Avenue of Giants' in Northern California.The first leg of our driving trip up the coast to Vancouver was the wine region of Napa Valley. Napa lies about 90 minutes drive North of San Francisco, so as you could imagine it becomes pretty hectic during the summer months with all the San Franciscans escaping the city to come and visit the country. The town of Napa is a somewhat kitschy affair sitting at the bottom of the valley which is dotted with small towns along its 50 km length. By chance, Fiona and I had booked a cottage in the small town of Calistoga which sits on the very northern part of the valley, and subsequently is much quieter than other parts of the valley.
We made our way up the valley having a squiz at some of the 450 different wineries which can be found in the region. We were expecting it to be littered with billboards and 'Ripley's Believe it or Not' style tourist traps which seem to accompany any place worth visiting in the US, however we were pleasantly surprised with sweeping vineyards and tasteful architecture, not unlike any of the wine regions at home. On the drive in we stopped off at
The Napa Valley
What better way to see a Wine Region than on bikes. a recommended winery and sampled a couple of $60 reds - very tasty.....things looked promising indeed. We quickly found our way to the hotel and booked in before hotfooting it into town to find the local bike rental store. What better way is there to see the wine region and enjoy it's 'fruits' without having to worry about driving? Unfortunately for Fi, wine regions are usually accompanied by valleys and hills, so once again we were slogging it out on our bikes.....fortunately the first two wineries were almost next door with some very easy flat roads between them.
Nearly all places in Napa charge money for wine tasting - anywhere from $5 to $20 per person depending on how elaborate the winery is and how expensive their wines are. We had about four hours to get around and managed to make it to four wineries. Our wallets opened wider and wider as the wine flowed more and more, and we eventually made it back to our hotel with about seven bottles of wine. This had us riding around Napa Valley singing the praises of the generous overseas living allowance paid to us by Defence! Unfortunately by the time we
A romantic Dinner
This is what I call romance. The food was pretty good too! arrived back in town the bike store had closed which left us with the bikes to ride home after dinner. We found a fantastic restaurant and microbrewery and enjoyed an amazing dinner after tasting all their beers and enjoying a bottle of wine from a winery we hadn't made it to!!
The next morning we woke a little fuzzy and heading back into town for some serious breakfast. A little cafe served breakfast burritos which hit the spot like you wouldn't believe. This was critically important as we had an 11:30 appointment with Napa's only Champagne maker. I say champagne because these guys actually import a portion of their grapes from Champagne in France. This winery was one of the oldest in the region and had two and a half kilometres of hand dug caves which they used to store and ferment all their sparkling wines. They gave us a tour of the caves and showed us row upon row of fermenting sparkling wine bottles while explaining the process they use to make the Champagne. After this it was time for a very la-de-dah sit down tasting session of four $100 sparkling wines - not exactly the stuff you
The Sham-pag-nee Tour
If only this thing was real! would refer to as Sham-pag-nee. I was driving, so Fi had to polish off all my tasters, so with a few glasses of bubbles under her belt she was feeling very happy indeed! Our final stop in the Valley was the Castello di Ambrioso which was a ridiculous medieval castle complete with winery built into the Calistoga hillside. Very Kitschy indeed.
Leaving Napa we wound our way through the Sonoma Valley which is also a wine region heading for the famous Highway 1 which runs the length of the California coast. We enjoyed relatively empty winding roads which swept through long lines of vineyards up to steep tree covered hillsides. It was very picturesque. Within a couple of hours we hit Highway 1 and were greeted with a sweeping view of the rugged California coastline. The coastline of the US Pacific Northwest is not unlike what is found along the great ocean road - very rugged cliffs which lead into relatively sheltered bays or long stretches of open beach. The sand here can only be described as 'dirty sand', it is a dark brown colour which seems to be speckled with river silt giving it a dirty appearance. The
The Coast Road
Views like this met us all the way along the Coast Road. road hugs the coast line and winds its way through steep pine covered mountains which literally meet the ocean right at the beach. It was strange to see such thick vegetation so close to the ocean.
We wound our way up through the coast to California Redwood country. There are two major types of redwood found in Northern California, the Sequoia redwood and the Coastal Redwood. The sequoias grow much thicker but not as tall as the Coastal Redwoods which are the tallest trees in the world. Many of these trees grow to well over 300 feet! We drove the 50km of scenic highway known as 'Avenue of the Giants' which wound its way through several groves of these gigantic trees. It is difficult to put into words what it is like to stand within a grove of these giants. They have no 'body clock' which tells the trees to die at a certain age, so they just continue to grow unless destroyed by fire. Many of the trees we walked amongst aged somewhere between 1220 - 2500 years old......it was very humbling. Driving through 'The Avenue of the Giants' is an experience in itself. The trees are so
A Fallen Giant
This is a smaller redwood which had fallen. This photo is to try to get some perspective on how big they are, but it didn't work. large that the road rarely sees sunlight as the canopy shrouds it in shade all day. Any straight stretch of road feels like driving through a canyon as the trees rise up each side of the road like a sheer wall. Quite simply, one of the most amazing things to see. We spent that night in the relatively plain logging town of Eureka. The only real points of interest was an incredibly ornate townhouse built by one of the first wealthy logging pioneers, and the Samoa cookhouse which is an all you could eat restaurant which was housed in an old mealhouse for the lumberjacks. You sat down at bench tables set amongst historical logging artifacts and the wait staff just kept bringing you food until you told them to stop. Yes Ian, it was good.
The next morning we headed further up the coast to Redwood National Park. Here we abandoned the car and hiked our way through some redwood groves. The National Park contained three of the ten biggest trees in the world, however they have to leave them unmarked for their own safety. Walking among these giants was equally as humbling as it had been the
The Driving Tree
Hands up who doesn't want to drive their car through a tree? day before. Shortly after our walk we came across the 'driving tree'. This was a redwood so big they had cut a hole large enough for you to drive your car through! Best $5 we ever spent, and before any tree huggers out there get upset, the hole was cut well over 100 years ago when and was on the old wagon trail, so people moving north would take their wagons through it. We continued up the coast and stopped briefly at 'The Trees of Mystery' tourist trap where we were greeted by the very touristy 50ft tall statue of Paul Bunyan and his blue oxen, carved out of a redwood. Fi and I stood their laughing at how kitschy it was when all of a sudden he started talking to us!! They had a guys with a microphone set up inside the statue and he could turn the head, wink and wave - Fiona nearly wet herself laughing. So we stood there and had a ten minute conversation with a 50ft statue talking about all sorts of things, Australia, where we'd been on our trip, where we were going, whether we liked the beer in the US.....it was a
The Giant Talking Statue
Here's Paul the Giant Talking statue with his Blue Oxan. If you look up 'Cheesy' in the dictionary, this picture is there. very strange experience! After leaving the trees of mystery we crossed the state line into Oregon. The scenery changed relatively quickly here, and we left redwood country for rugged coastline with rough surf crashing against the dark rocks of the steep Oregon cliffs. We randomly stopped at numerous lookouts to enjoy the amazing views which this type of coastline offers before settling into the quaint little town on Bandon for the evening.
Next morning we enjoyed a fantastic breakfast in the attractive Bandon old town before once again heading up the coast. Unfortunately the sunny (although sometimes cool) weather we had experienced seemed to have abandoned us, and we were faced with threating clouds. The first stop on our list was the sand dunes which supposedly make the south Oregon coast famous. Having grown up on the south coast of Victoria, I'd rolled down a few sand dunes while acting the dickhead as a kid, so I must admit I wasn't overly excited. We found the park access to the dunes and started the 2km hike out to the dunes. We trekked through some fairly typical coast vegetation before being met by sweeping sand dunes that made us feel
The Oregan Sand Dunes
These things went on and on for miles from the beach. The best beach cricket field ever! like we were in the Sahara desert. These things stretched as far as the eye could see in one direction and then at least another 2-3 km to the coast (Just a little more impressive than the sand dunes at Princetown Mum & Dad!!) Fi couldn't help herself and ran up and down the dunes like a kid before getting puffed out, and we decided to head back. Unfortunately the weather closed in and the coast was soon shrouded in fog and mist. Further up the coast we stopped at the expensive and somewhat stinky Sea Lion Cave. A group of Sea Lions had made a cave along this part of the coast home, so a group of dudes had carved a massive elevator shaft and cave into the cliff to allow tourists to have a sticky beak, but boy did these suckers honk!! Next to the Sea Lion Cave is the Hecata Lighthouse which is claimed to be the most photographed lighthouse in the world. Maybe it was the fog obscuring the view, but it wasn't really that impressive - I could've kicked a footy over it, which is saying something. We continued up the coast stopping periodically to
Just your Typical Lunch
Enjoying a few samples at the Rouge Brewery. Mmmmm Chocolate Stout! enjoy the views and do some short hikes. We enjoyed some whale watching at a small town called Lincoln City before driving past the smallest river in the world - a pizly 40 metres. We stopped that night at the town of Astoria which is famous for being the locations where the 1984 classic movie 'Goonies' was filmed.
The next morning was a slow start as I had to finish and submit some Uni work before we departed. We drove a short way to check out what turned out to be a very overrated ship wrecked on one of the beaches before heading to the Rouge Ale House for lunch. Now, I have to say these guys make some of the best beer I have ever tasted. Fi and I enjoyed a great meal there and sampled 11 different types of beer with our meal. The favorites were the Chocolate Stout (which we had for dessert), the Hazelnut Ale (Fi's favorite), and the Honey Orange Wheat which was my favorite. As I was driving I was only tasting these and leaving the rest for Fi. So with a bit of sunlight shinning into the car and the rhythmic rolling
The Fijian Hakka
Anyone know how to used Paintshop to give me a better Tan? of the car on the road, little Fi had a very relaxing Sunday afternoon nap while we crossed over into Washington State.
We arrived at the small seaside town of Steveston which although is part of the greater Vancouver city, really feels like its own unique small town. We found a room above the Steveston Hotel and after a wander around the quaint little town soon found ourselves back at the hotel bar, 'The Buck & Ear' (very clever). Much to my delight this place almost exclusively sold beers from the local Microbrews. We enjoyed a nice meal and I started working my way through the beer list. A very good local band was playing, so before too long we were carving up the dancing floor, I was pulling every move out of my three trick repertoire. Just before closing a group of Fijian guys walked in and we quickly befriended them. Although they spoke only a little English, it turned out they were Fisherman working on one of the local ships. Before too long, the bar closed and we found ourselves on their fishing boat enjoying 75% alcohol Fijian Rum - delightful. But this was not before ripping
The Addams Family House
Well not really, but it looks like it. This was simply the house of a wealthy logger. our shirts off and doing a rendition of the Kiwi Hakka.....unfortunately photos are attached.
The next morning we were a little slow to get going - we woke up about 45 minutes after checkout time with the maid vacuuming the hallway. With rather large headaches we enjoyed a hearty breakfast at the downstairs cafe before jumping in the car and heading for Downtown Vancouver....it was going to be a long day.....
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