Rowkin Rovings Blog

We covered 324 miles (521 kilometers) today and both shattered by the time we finished for the day.

We started our day by heading to the Humboldt National Park where we drove along the Avenue of the Giants. The Giants of course being the magnificent sequoias and west coast cedars to name but just two types of tree that we saw.

Di finally found her tree to hug. It is very sad when you read about these giants and how they were basically annihilated.  As far back as 1918 there were “greenies” rallying to save the destruction of them. The end result was that 99% were allowed to be felled whilst the remaining is what we see today. Where do we start with the selfishness and greed of the human race.

You know how there is that famous photo of the car driving through the trunk of a huge sequoia, well we went looking for it today. We located two spots where you could do this but were appalled that the groves of trees where these massive trees are, are privately owned. If you wanted to drive your car through and take a photo, it would cost you $15. That got Di’s hackles on high alert. If the funds were going towards a national park, it would be tolerable, but into the private coffers, totally intolerable. Hence, no photo.

Last photo of tree porn!

If you want a giggle, we suggest you watch to the end of this video.

After we left our beloved trees behind, we drove across to the coast via an amazingly windy road which we named The Brindley Way. Our narrowboat friends will instantly understand what we are referring to. Brindley was an engineer of the early canals in the UK who used the contours of the land to lay out his canals which reduced costs substantially by not having to build tunnels, locks or bridges. The downside being that it added many more miles to any journey on his canals. They were always very picturesque though as was the drive this morning. We thought Toque was handling it very well until we got in for the evening and found her blanket soiled with some vomit – we need to be more aware of that in the future.

This is very indicative of the coastline that we drove down. It felt exceedingly remote and very few settlements along the way. Once we made the decision to drive down it, we were committed. We didn’t actually get onto the coastal portion until 1.00pm and we had 183 miles until we could find a place to stay.

We kept looking out at the beautifully calm Pacific Ocean and were thinking of the number of times we have flown across it and just how damn far away Australia and New Zealand are.

Need we remind you of yet more gorgeous weather again today, courtesy of the photo above.

We got to this place finally called Bodega Bay where we discovered we would not get a room under $300USD for the night – you can imagine us saying, well bugger that, and we did. We drove on for another 40 minutes which got us to a place called Petaluma which is on the outskirts of San Francisco. This final bit of driving was all in the dark which neither of us like doing but in the end, it paid off.

So tomorrow, we make a dash through San Francisco to get to the southern coastal road.