Redwoods

---

Ello again eager readers, this time i'm going to tell you about my time in the Redwood National Park in northern California!

The place i was staying at in the redwoods was a hostel on highway 101. It was one of the hostelling international places, which is a group/organisation hostels can join in order to get more publicity and all of the other reasons companies group together. If you want to have a look at the place, here it is: http://www.norcalhostels.org/redwoods/

The hostel itself was kinda interesting, it's a family-run place in a pretty remote location. OK so it's on one of the major highways of california, but there's no mobile phone signal or internet access - which is saying a lot for somewhere in the west nowadays! There were also only two busses per day which you could catch either north or south- so it felt more remote than the other places i've stayed in.
The hostel was pretty hippie, they were into recycling, fairtrade and organic food to quite a high level. The coffee was organic, fairly traded and shade-grown. Shade grown coffee apparently means that less trees are cut down in order to farm the coffee plants. And on top of that, my pillow felt weird, so it was probably made of some weird-ass cotton alternative. Not that i'm against being good to mother-earth, but some of the things seemed a bit over the top! Hippieness aside, it was a great place to stay and didn't really feel like a hostel, more like staying in someone elses home. Whilst I was there the weather was great, i even got my first sunburn of the trip - good times.

So, winding back a bit to Day 1...

I got up early (about 6:30AM) in order to pack up my bags, have a shower and some breakfast before heading down to the Amtrak bus stop in good time. I had to get everything right with the transport, as there were a lot of changeovers that could only happen once a day. So of course the first Amtrak bus i needed to catch didn't have any signs or symbols indicating that it was an Amtrak bus. The only way i found out that it was Amtrak was by asking the driver when the next amtrak bus was going to arrive. Anyway, luckily I got on the correct bus, swearing at myself for nearly screwing it up so early in the trip. about 8 hours later, after various stops, breaks and changeovers, I arrived on the side of the freeway, across the road from the Redwood National Park Hostel. I didn't do much more that day other than get a shower, make some food and get an early night.

Day 2...

Some hippies were leaving in their van to go north - so i took the oportunity to get a free ride to Crescent City - a small logging town about 30 minutes north of the hostel. The main aim: find somewhere with free wifi so i can get a message back home saying i got there safely. Soon enough i found a small coffee shop with all the technological requirements - as well as coffee with free refills - bonus! So i hung out there for a few hours before catching the bus back to the hostel. I spent the rest of the afternoon doing a short hike through the nearby hills and back along the coast - about 6 miles.

Day 3...

New dorm-mate arived, and he had a car! So we took a drive south to Arcata, the nearest big-city. Spent the day walking around there, visiting shops etc. I had a short nap when we got back to the hostel and then watched the sunset from the beach. It's a tough life eh?

Day 4...
Got up late, about 10AM, had breakfast and strolled across the road onto the beach where i proceeded to fall asleep and get nicely sunburnt. 😞 That's about all i did that day - did a bit of hiking in the evening.

Day 5...
Time to go back to San Francisco, another early start to the 10 hour journey home. Nothing too eventful happened, altho travelling with sunburn sucks!

It's 11pm and i have an eaely start tomorrow, i'll finish this off soon.


-dan

---

Photos

Hole in Tree
Me and some people i met hiding in a redwood ^_^

Redwood Hike
It was like this for about 3 miles!

Hidden Beach
This beach can only be got to by hiking 4 miles through the forest! It was absolutely awesome. I was sitting on this rock thinking for a couple of hours and an otter literally walked right past me and into the sea! I was the only one there, loved it

Sunset on the beach
Chilled

Sunset on the beach 2
not the best pic, but i think the idea of it is cool