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Published: April 24th 2010
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We woke up early and the weather was, surprisingly, not too bad. We caught the MUNI to Golden Gate Park for a look around. At our stop I was a little slow off the train and ended up catching it along to the next stop while Jo stood outside the train wondering what I was doing. It was more good luck than good management that the next stop was only a few blocks away so we managed to catch up again soon after.
Our first stop at Golden Gate Park was the Japanese Tea Garden - an area of beautiful gardens adorned with Japanese style pagodas and bridges. We were lucky enough to get there before most people so had it pretty much to ourselves for a while. We also walked through the national AIDS memorial planted in memory of all AIDS victims.
We spent quite some time looking for the Bison Enclosure to no avail. I’m not too sure if it is even still in the park or if they have been removed but I am certain that they were not located where our map said they were! Jo was getting hungry so we walked out of the
Golden Gate Park to get some breakfast. By the time we were done we were looking a bit pushed for time to get across town to SBC Park - where the San Francisco Giants play baseball - for a tour at 1030. We continued on and saw the Dutch Windmill on the far western corner of the park before catching a MUNI train across the Bay.
We arrived about 10 minutes late for the tour of SBC Park. There were signs all over the building stating that the tour started from the Giants Dug-Out Store but no arrows or directions to said store could be found anywhere. We lost another 10 minutes trying to find it before abandoning any ideas of making it on time. We finally made arrangements with the staff to leave our bags in the shop for the next mornings tour at 1030.
A streetcar took us to Fisherman’s Wharf and we found a bicycle rental shop. I hadn’t ridden a bike for years and it took me a few minutes to get “back in the saddle” - particularly being on the wrong side of the road and not really knowing the yankee road rules.
We rode to a rock-art poster shop that I had found the day before to look at some posters and get some contact details and headed back around the waterfront towards the Golden Gate Bridge. Just on the southern side of the Golden Gate is a café and gift shop where we stopped for a late lunch of pepperoni pizza and nachos (the recommended diet of top cyclists!) and after a few minutes to let it settle we remounted and rode across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was quite a feeling being able to cycle over one of the world’s most recognized landmarks. Midway there was a plaque acknowledging the architects, engineers etc that had helped with its construction so we stopped and took some photos. Every 50 metres or so were emergency phones with signs saying “please use in an emergency or for counseling”! I figured a few people must think it a good idea to throw themselves off there every once in a while.
We cycled on and found a lookout on the north eastern side of the bridge that offered a fantastic view of the city, Alcatraz and the Oakland Bay Bridge. A few wrong turns
and unnecessary hills later we rode into Sausalito. Our immediate thoughts were how to get home as we were late for what we were told was the last ferry of the day. Fortunately there were still a few more to go so we rode the length of the main street and found a deli where we bought cheese, olives and bread for dinner. We caught the 1920 ferry back to the terminal in San Francisco and dropped our bikes back before getting the cable car back to Hotel Des Arts.
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