Surf-and-hike-roadtripping

It's been nearly a week since I've been online now, and that's due to a little roadtrip through California in a lovely Volkswagen camper van. Here's a short account of my travel adventures from the past week.

On Wednesday July 12 we set out south of San Francisco to Santa Cruz. We arrived there sometime in the evening, where we first stopped at a little sandy, but smelly beach. It was nice to see pelicans in the wild though (and there were lots of them). Then we drove through the city to find a nice organic restaurant that Rowan had been to before. Eventually we found it and they served a salad with Dutch strawberries, so it was good!
But then we had to find a place to sleep, unfortunately wild camping alongside the road is not allowed in California. But we did it anyway. In Santa Cruz we asked a surfer if he knew a nice spot, and indeed he did. About 20 miles north of Santa Cruz there's a little parking right at the beach of the Pacific, so we slept there with the sweet sound of the waves and under a beautiful starry sky.

The next day we had to get up early because I booked a surf lesson (it never hurts to learn more) in Santa Cruz at 8. The ocean was very friendly and I had a few extremely good long rides. After a nice three-hour session, in which I even saw a seal enjoying a little swim, it was time for brunch, in the shape of a big shrimp salad on the beach :)
After that we were off south to Monterey and Big Sur. Near Big Sur we found a very nice campsite, near the river and with a lot of shade as it was (and still is) pretty hot. Though in the shade of the mountains it cooled down pretty soon so Rowan lit a campfire on which we cooked. The next morning we set out to Pismo Beach. Though before we got there we visited three State Parks (you only need to pay once per day :)) First in we went to Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park where we visited the Pfeiffer waterfalls, and then up to the Valley View which was gorgeous. On the way down we saw a snake in the grass!! State parks are dangerous! ;)
The next Park along the absolutely magnificent Highway 1 was Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. It's not as big as the Big Sur State Park. Actually, it's only one waterfall, but a good one. Then we hit the road again, further south. However, the little brake indicator light on the dashboard came up. After 50 miles we decided to check the manual what that could mean, and it was bad, it meant that we were running out of brake fluid. Fortunately the van has two brake circuits, although using the secondary one made the coolant light come up :S. The next few towns didn't have the kind of brake fluid we needed, so on to 'Autozone' in Morrow Bay. Then on with full brakes again we did the last few miles to Pismo Beach. But not before we visited yet another State Park, Montana de Oro! Which wasn't quite a golden mountain, more a cold and foggy beach, but at least we can say we've been there. Pismo beach was crazy, every campsite was full, and there were no quiet little roads to park our van like the first night, so we went back north a little to Avila Springs, where we found a hideously expensive, and smelly campsite. But with good showers, which made up for a lot. We also had electricity there, so we watched a DVD on Rowan's MacBook. The next day we drove up to Pismo beach again, and rented some surfboards, for 1 dollar per hour, which is extremely cheap, but the boards were definitely OK. However, after friendly Santa Cruz, the ocean put me right back into place with some powerful wipe-outs, blocked ears for hours etc. But that's all part of the fun. After a few liters of salty water it was time for a proper lunch, so we went to the local Chinese take-away and got some chow mein and rice to eat on the beach. We spent the rest of the day lazily reading books in our couch-potatoe-fold-out chairs :).

Around 5 we hit the road again, not south this time but northeast, towards Yosemite National Park. We managed to get to Oakhurst, about 10 miles south of Yosemite. On that journey we saw fluffy hills, cities that are so small that they're not supposed to be called cities, like Kettleman City, which is just three houses, a shell petrol station and a McDonald's, and finally woods. Around 8 we got to Fresno, which looks like a reasonably big town on the map, but it was utterly deserted. We finally found a supermarket that was still open and bought some ice-cream because we were boiling, it had been scalding hot on the road, and the bottles of water had heated up so much that you'd only have to put a teabag in it to get a nice hot cup of tea. We got bored with Fresno pretty soon so we went on again. The petrol got cheaper and cheaper along the way so we filled it up for $ 3.07 per Gallon, which got us a long way. When we got to Oakhurst it was too late to find a campsite, but plenty of nice and quiet streets...campers are great! :)

The next morning we had breakfast at Starbucks and we drove into Yosemite. There we found a nice first come-first serve campsite at an altitude of 7200 ft. (the highest place on land I've ever slept at). We nearly immediately went for a hike to Taft Point, the sign on the campsite said it would only be a 1 mile hike, so very easy, as it was still quite hot. However, at the campsite they meant drive up to some parking lot somewhere in the park, and hike from there. So we did a trail of about 6 miles, and then ended up at a parking space some 6 miles away from the campsite. Whoops. Usually 6 miles isn't too bad, but it was hot, very hilly, and we were running out of water, so we hitchhiked back to our campsite :) The hike itself was very good, just walking for 3 hours without meeting anyone, through various landscapes, with the lookout point over the gorgeous valley at the end of it.

In the evening we went to Glacier point to listen to a Park Ranger's sunset talk. It felt very schoolcamp-y, but we learnt a lot (of course). On the way back I nearly ran over a deer that had decided to cross the road right in front of my van, but no-one got hurt.

The next morning we went down into Yosemite valley to buy some more brake fluid, food and a new memory card for my camera, as the other ones were either full or giving memory card errors (I'll retrieve them though). The road to the valley is great, we got some great views of the Yosemite Waterfall that drops about 1.5 kms. Because it was very hot in the valley we went back up again as soon as possible to the Mariposa Grove of big trees, where the famous Grizzly Giant Sequoia is found, as well as the tree with the tunnel through it :).
In the evening we had a campfire with the park ranger telling stories about bears, which was good, but would have been better if we'd thought of getting marshmellows.

On Tuesday morning we left the campsite rather early, because bugs we're determined to get our blood (though Rowan's more than mine :)) and we had a long way to go to San Francisco. The 140 was closed so we took the 120 which led us on some really winding roads with a speed limit of only 20 mph near the San Pedro Lake. We even found some cheaper petrol, 2.99 per Gallon! And then we just raced for the shower, because our campsite in Yosemite didn't have any showers (real camping is what that's called :)). In the evening when we felt all nice and clean again we went to a sushi bar with some friends of Rowan's. Where I got initiated in the rituals of eating sushi properly (so not with a fork from the plastic box that you got it in from the supermarket) and it was good :).

Today we had to return the van, but not until three so we took it to Pacifica for a short surf session, among bird poo and jellyfish. But it definitely helped digest the heavy brunch we had at a diner in SF. That's about it for my adventures up until now. Photos will follow soon. Byeeeeee!