Highway 1 to San FranJun 22, 2011
|
|
| We crawled out of bed and started heading north to San Francisco via Highway 1 which runs along the coast. There were some great views and I hardly ever had problems driving a vehicle with the steering wheel on the wrong side! Just don't ask Rochelle her opinion on that, she did point out a few times where her side of the vehicle was in relation to the road and other users. The drive was quite spectacular narrow winding roads right along the coast and views of beach and rocks and tall trees and things we don't get to see very much of. The distance we planned to travel that day was pretty huge but there were plenty of little towns besides the highway that we could stop in for a short break as well as a bit of food, fuel or sight seeing. I had my first encounter with pre paying for fuel - what a stupid concept. How much do you want - how the hell do I know, i haven't filled the car up yet! And if this stupid question is combined with a Spanish speaking accent that I can't understand I am not sure that I am cut out for this America lark, Asia is so much easier where you know things are going to be different and there isn't a surface veneer of a place that you will understand. Didn't think much of the pulled pork roll that we ended up with for lunch, but you have to try these things. Along the way we made a stop at a beach where elephant seals have set up a breeding colony on the coast rather than on islands off the coast. Very exciting to see them right in front of you playing at elephant seal fights. They had a volunteer docent there who gave us a bit of background info and showed us a bit of moulted skin - looks like double sided Velcro, no wonder they wanted to get it off them regularly! Swimming around were some Californian sea lions as well and running around trying to get food were a bunch of squirrels. Good fun! Not long after this we encountered a slight problem. With fog around and skinny winding roads and the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car I managed to make Rochelle swear as the tyre hit on of the many rocks on the side of the road that had fallen from the cliff. Luckily i didn't have to worry about the horrible noise or the sudden change in steering, i had a sensor in front of me to tell me that one of my tyres had lost pressure. So i continued up the narrow winding road till i found somewhere moderately safe to pull over and check things out. Lost tyre pressure my bum - I had done a side wall seriously! OK, where is the book to locate the tyre changing gear. I gave up on it and starting moving luggage and gear out of the way and find it buried in a boot area... with typical German efficiency it had everything, including some gloves for clean hands whilst changing tyres and a wedge to stop the car rolling. the one thing it didn't have was a real tyre. It had one of those ridiculous tyres that are smaller and speed limited. Bloody hell that's all we need. Still it will get us going till we can get a real one! So we stuck it on for my first experience of this sort of tyre. Not the fastest tyre change I have ever undertaken but we got it on and when you pumped it up, it unfolded! Yes unfolded - the tyre had folds in it that uncompressed and made it into the right size but still speed limited.... Probably uncool to be amazed by something that is probably common place for most other people but its an interesting concept. We also stopped at the Julia Pfeiffer falls which go directly into the ocean from some height which looks pretty spectacular. It was all part of the Big Sur area where there are lots of big trees like California redwoods and wet type vegetation. Our final stop on this stretch was at Point something where we went for a very quick look - we were there with only about half an hour of it still being open. So we did a very quick loop along a point with fog all around us, the sound of sea lions barking in the distance ( the sea lions do the classic arrrr arrr where you expect to see a ball balancing on their nose). We were on the look out for sea otters as this was the classic spot, kelp beds, lots of headland and rocks). Sure enough in amongst some kelp, lying on their back were a couple of animals enjoying themselves. And a fawn hiding from everybody in the bushes below the track. We pointed the location out to some obnoxious American kids but not sure they cared or would have spotted it.... and then into San Francisco to stay at the Fairmont. We arrived at our hotel lateish that night.... after the usual set of misdirections from the GPS and misinterpretations from Noddy once we hit the area near the hotel. The typical movie shots of San Francisco (hereafter known as SF) were shot in the area of our hotel with steep hills with level bits at the intersection for you to grind the front of your car onto as you flew down it trying to escape the cops. Luckily I had been playing Grand Theft Auto and Corin had taught me a few tricks so I had no problems negotiating the potential issues posed by these hills. Unfortunately the streets of GTA didn't also have cable cars and electric buses running up and down them - another element of scary is added when you have to drive on the wrong side of the road (muttering me to the middle), remember to indicate with the switches on the other side of the steering column (hey the window needed lots of cleaning, it was deliberate using the windscreen wipers) and try and work out if one of those cable cars is going to hit you in the backside. On top of all that I had to look (pretend) to be somewhat competent or Rochelle would treat me with contempt. Finally we rocked up at the Fairmont on Nob Hill - how fitting someone of my breeding and high social standing staying on Nob Hill! I even managed to sneak Rochelle in. We had a meal that night in the hotel because it was a bit late to be heading out to eat and the restaurant look pretty swish (as did the rest of the hotel not surprisingly - the Fairmont hotels are pretty high end). Rochelle had dirty river fish and I had a marinaded chicken dish. Interpreted this meant that Rochelle does not enjoy sturgeon which is probably not something that should be admitted in a country proud of its sturgeon and that Noddy ended up eating dirty fish whilst Rochelle ate chicken. |
Advertisement 
|
