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Published: October 9th 2006
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Lombard Street
The most crooked street in the world. Fact of the day: Postcards bearing this image outsell ones bearing the image of the golden Gate Bridge Well, well, well, it's almost home time!
Firstly Apologies for signing off with an appaling title for my final blog, but it just came into my head and i couldn't resist!
My final port of call on my travels is that finest of ports, San Francisco. I arrived from Santa Barbara on the Train, the trains over here are brilliant, so comfortable with lounge rooms to watch movies in- a nice change from the Greyhound Bus and their arsey staff.
I stayed in the Green Tortoise Youth hostel, it had a great vibe about the place and is one of the better bigger Youth Hostels i've stayed in on my travels. On my first full day in San Fran I left the hostel armed with my map and walked and walked and walked...
Being from the Lake District and having went to University in Sheffield I should be used to hills but San Francisco was something else, i was knackered. I went up Coit Tower, which offered a great view of the whole city, actually i'm lying- it would have been a great view if it wasn't for all of the fog! Something else San Frans famous
Old School Fairground
At the famous (and highly commercial) Pier 39 for- i could just about see the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz in the distance.
I went to Fishermans Wharf, including the touristy Pier 39, which has loads of street entertainers plying their various trades on the streets- the freaky Transvestite charging for photographs was particularly scary. Pier 39 also has a colony of Sea Lions in the bay stinking the place out and making loads of noise (Needed to have Salazar with me to go "Dave Man it's alright your smileys are at the bottom of the freezer!") I took a walk up and then back down the famous Lombard Street: this is famous for being the most Crooked Street in the World. As you walked up the pavement you could smell the rubber that came from cars tires due to the having to break and turn sharply all the time.
Went out for a pub crawl that night: was quality. Met some cool peeps, and some strange ones, including this Turkish fella talking about being a Dinosaur in a past life and "giving God permisssion" to create an ice age to make his fellow dinosaurs extinct?!
I got a boat over to the famous Prison
The Rock
The most famous prison in the world Alcatraz the next day. As well as being able to tour around the whole Island on foot we were able to look around the Cellhouse whilst getting an audio tour: was interesting hearing about all of the escape attempts (Probably none of them were successful) Also learnt about some famous crims that stayed there incuding Machine Gun Kelly and Al Capone.
I decided to hire a bike and cycle over the Golden Great Bridge on Sunday. Was pretty knackering at times but it was worth it. After crossing the bridge i headed to Sausalito , they had a vintage car rally that day so i checked it out. I got the ferry back to Fishermans Wharf from Sausalito and then cycled all around San Francisco: I checked out Golden Gate Park as well as riding through Haight and Ashbury, an area with lots of alternative hippy shops.
On the Monday I went to Yosemite National Park for a couple of days. The tour i done was with the Yosemite Bug Bus, it was really good value. We were picked up from our San Francisco Hostels on Monday Morning and taken to the Bug Lodge, which is about 3
hours drive from San Francisco and about another hour away from Yosemite National Park. There were 9 of us in the group: Three Polish People, an American, A German, three Aussies and me the token English guy! Helen who I met at Santa Barbara was one of the Aussies, as Sprigsy would say- small world! I got on with everyone but tended to knock about with her Mark and Ashley, the two Aussie blokes.
When we arrived at the Bug Lodge, which is out in the sticks, it was around 4pm and we were given the option of either swimming or mountain biking- due to the fact it was a grey miserable day we went for the Mountain Biking! We were took up this mountain in the minibus, with the bikes strapped to the back of it- was a rocky ride to say the least and it took us ages to get to the top where we cycled down from. After instructions that the front and back brakes are the opposite to in England we were off- it was pretty hairy, and everyone was reluctant to pick up too much speed due to the huge drop that would've awaited
Some infamous faces
Amongst them is Al Capone us. One of the Polish girls wiped out straight away?! When me and a few others were half way down we stopped at this lookout point to admire the scenery way below us, we were getting waved at from the Poles who were way behind us, we obviously waved back (It was only later that we found out that one of their tires had burst and they wanted us to send help from the minibus that was waiting for us at the bottom- oops!)
We were meant to ride all the way back to the Lodge once we reached the bottom of the mountain but as the sunshine had finally decided to come out we spontaneously decided to have a quick dip in the river, soit's a good job i never went Commando that day! There was a rock which was about 5 metres high that we could jump into the river from, which was good crack, almost lost my boxers after diving in once though?! The water was freezing though, needless to say Marble Arch was a bit of a problem! We were kindly given a lift back to the Lodge from the Minibus in the end! Had
Do you Sea Lions?
At Pier 39- The smell is horrific S'mores by the campfire that night (a S'more is a marshmallow that is heated on the fire and a piece of Hershey's chocolate that is sandwiched between grahams crackers)- they were horrible!
The next day we were all up bright and early to head to Yosemite! At Yosemite we first went to this forest where we seen Deers, squirrels, chipmunks and such like as well as huge Redwood Trees. After a spot of lunch we went to a lookout point which offered us a great view of Half Dome (Basically this is a huge rock) before doing a small trek to Mirror Lake. Mirror Lake was supposed to be amazing, where all of the cliffs surounding the Lake reflected off the lake for a great photo opportunity: unfortunately we came at the wrong time of year and the Lake was dry?!?! so there were no reflections!
Finally we went to check out El Capitan, a huge rock face that the creme de la creme of climbers across the world like to climb. Apparently the climb takes them about three days and it's only for professionals (Oi mate i'm not a professional), there are hardly any footholes or anything
The Golden Gate Bridge
One of about 5000 pics I took of it on my camera. A shame the weather was a bit dull. for them to hold onto, it's mad. We could see a few specks on the rock face that didn't see to be moving much, we were assured that these were people climbing the rock, it's a long slog for them. Our guide said he once saw a woman try and Base Jump from the top of El Capitan only for her parachute not to open, the noise was apparently like a bomb exploding when she hit the ground- ouch!
That night I played cards at the Lodge till the early hours and headed back to San Fran the next day. In San Fran I met up with the Aussies and we wandered around the city aimlessly, stopping for lunch at one of the Chinese Restaurants in Chinatown. That night i went to see Jackass Two with a few mates from the Green Tortoise.
And that my friends just about wraps things up! On 5th October i flew home and arrived back at my house on 6th October?! What a trip it has been, and it's been a pleasure for me to relay some of my experiences to you people reading my blog. It's hard to point to highlights
Vintage
As luck would have it there was a Vintage Car rally taking place as I was on my bike ride. of my trip because I have enjoyed the vast majority of the places i have been and activities i've done: from the Jungle Trekking in Thailand, Glacier Walking in NZ to visiting the Grand Canyon in USA. In fact i'd say the best thing about travelling has been the laughs i've had and the people from all over the world i have met. So until I decide to travel the World again, thats all from me
It's been great!
Mike
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will an sheila stud
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WHAT NO MORE BLOGS??????
As victor meldrew would say " I cant bloody believe it" no more blogs for us to read on cold wet miserable winter days !!! well its not good enough smudge you'll have to save up and go again to somewhere differant and keep us all entertained. but seriously really glad you've had a great time and great experiences. and we have loved joining in your travels. see you soon when we call at your mams. from us in the bronx