Home at last

Well we cannot believe that our trip is over and a whole month has passed by. Mixed feelings as usual about the end of a holiday. Traveling anywhere always makes you appreciate how lucky we are and what a wonderful country we live in and what an amazing planet we share.

Thanks for following our adventures. We had a ball!

 

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Highway 1 Monterey to Santa Maria

Continued our road trip down the amazing highway 1. Parts of the road are very close to the cliff and ocean.

A nice surprise along the way was a beach covered in elephant seals! Very cool. We thought the ones we could see were huge until the volunteer told us that the really big ones are currently out at sea. They are HUGE! The males make a really groovy noise.

Check out the elephant seals in the background.

Stopped off at Hearst castle for lunch. Did not go inside the castle as it was getting late in the day but we did check out the zebras on the front lawn.

Visited the tennis warehouse where Chris and Cameron picked up some bargains.

Finished off the day with a great Mexican meal and a final pack. Somehow we have purchased 14 pairs of shoes between us - insane! But the zips are done.

For those following with interest we will be home on Sunday.

 

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San Francisco to Monterey

Departed San Francisco via the Muir Wood forest, famous for huge Californian redwoods. Beautiful place.

Travelled down highway 1 along the coast line to Monterey a nice seaside town.

 

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San Francisco

Slow start to the morning then caught the bus down to the harbour. First stop Ghirardelli chocolate. Yum! Enjoyed a hot chocolate and a few samples of chocolate.

Neede to work the chocolate off so we hired some bikes to cross the Golden Gate Bridge over to a lovely seaside town Sausolito before riding the ferry back with the bikes across the harbour.

A local Thai restaurant for dinner which was delicious and a lovely atmosphere. We had to remove our shoes and the tables appeared to be low, but there was a pit underneath the tables to place your legs.

Great day. We really love San Francisco. It has a nice personality a bit like Sydney and Melbourne combined together. But the hills are insane!

 

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San Francisco

Started the day with a scenic drive around San Francisco. Views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the harbour. It is a very pretty city. We took a drive down Lombard street, famous for being the crookedest street in the world. It is amazing.

Returned the car to our apartment then caught the buses down to the piers. Missed our bus stop so ended up at pier 1 and we needed to be at pier 33. But luckily we had plenty of time and the walk along the piers was lovely. Sometimes getting lost is the best part. So we wandered along to the famous Pier 39 to have some lunch and check out the sea lions. The sea lions are hilarious. They are completely wild but choose to come and sun themselves on the floating decks near the Pier. They are either sleeping, sneezing or barking at each other for disturbing their sleep.

Back to Pier 33 to catch our tour to Alcatraz. A very interesting tour and particularly creepy doing it in the evening.

Home on the right buses for dinner.

 

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Yosemite to San Francisco

Yosemite national park has 800 miles of walking trails. This morning we did about 5 of them. Firstly we walked up Sentinal Dome. 360degree views of the Yosemite valley. Spectacular.

These trees smell like hot chocolate!!

This is the dome we climbed.

Next we walked to Glacier Point for more views and sheer drops. The huge rocks are just amazing.

Before leaving the park we visited the sequoia pine forest at Mariposa grove. The trees are huge. Particularly the grizzly giant whose branches were thicker than most trees. And they have a lovely squishy kind of bark which makes them perfect for hugging!

So we left Yosemite without a bear sighting, but we did see these bare foot prints...

We then had a 4 hour drive ahead of us to San Francisco. I have to say driving on 6 lane freeways at dusk, heading into the sunset, with bridges closed, taking detours, is not really my thing. A large glass of wine was needed when we arrived at our lovely apartment.

 

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Mammoth lakes to Yosemite National Park

Before leaving Mammoth Lakes we had to visit the BlacK Velvet Coffee shop which has a very good reputation for quality coffee, according to trip advisor. I was not disappointed. So good to finally have a good coffee! So good I also had one to go.

Before heading to Yosemite we took a detour to a "ghost town" Bodie. A busy town in the 1800's when it was a base for gold mining, it is now left in ruins. Very interesting wandering the streets.

Took our time driving to Yosemite appreciating many spectacular views along the way. The rocks are HUGE! And it is so amazing to see the trees growing out of the rocks.

 

Once we made it to our accommodation at Yosemite lodge ( after having to do the one way loop twice) we went for a walk to the Yosemite falls. Unfortunately being autumn there is no water flowing at the moment, but judging by the height of the rocks it would be pretty amazing.

 

On our way back from the walk the family split and both parties saw some interesting wildlife. Lilly and Chris saw a lovely male deer while Cameron and I saw a coyote! I was a bit freaked out so did not hang around to get a good photo.

After dinner the ranger did a presentation all about the park and I learnt that I don't really need to be scared of coyotes or bears (there are no grizzly bears here since the late 1800's). I feel so much better now.

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