Saturday 21st March

Back on the 101 today, and heading south towards San Francisco. We took a road off the 101 which runs parallel, called “Avenue of the Giants”, a 32-mile drive through some old-growth redwoods. Some of these trees are absolutely huge, over 300 feet, and they can live for up to 2000 years. It was a very reverential place, makes you feel quite humble walking the trails amongst these ancient beings. We rejoined the 101 which had come a little way inland, and then took a westerly turn onto Highway 1, which was now the coast road. There was an incredibly winding section before the road reached the coast, but we were well rewarded by some more great coastline. Not quite as spectacular as the Oregon coast, but still beautiful, and we were just glad to be back by the sea after quite a lot of inland mileage.
We passed through a few small towns on this road, inluding Mendocino, a nice little artistic community by the sea. We were trying to decide what to do at this point, whether to head into San Francisco tonight or to wait until tomorrow so we could orient ourselves by daylight. We called a few hostels in SF and they were all full for tonight, so that decided it. We booked a room for the next night, and then headed back towards the 101 to find a motel. We stopped off at a roadside diner called Libby’s, which turned out to be a Mexican restaurant, which showed us which part of the country we were now entering. Had some great Enchiladas, sadly had to pass up the chocolate brownie sundae, appetite seems to be dwindling a tad. We headed for a Motel 6 on the outskirts of Santa Rosa, was pretty tired today so good to get an early night in preparation for hitting the big city tomorrow.