Thursday 30 September 2010

Lake Tahoe

Some pics from around our destination today, after a hot night in Redding CA last night.

Donner Lake



Lake Tahoe CA


Wednesday 29 September 2010

Fort Bragg to Redding via Hwy101 & Hwy 229

Drove up the coast a bit on Shoreline Hwy 1, then on to Hwy 101N, (also about 8 miles on into the Humboldt National Park) the Redwood Hwy to Eureka, then to Redding via Hwy229E and the beautiful Shasta-Trinity National Forest. This is spectacular country and the giant redwoods are so tall that it's actually hard to get pictures of them.






Tuesday 28 September 2010

North on Hwy 1 Shoreline Drive

This is actually Monday USA time, despite what the blog date stamp says.
What a day! We trudged through the steep streets of San Francisco "only a few blocks" to Bush Street to pick up our pre-booked hire car. We got there at 10.00am only to join a very long queue of others waiting for their cars. Long story short, we left at 12.30pm 'upgraded' Jeep SUV. Now I had been pretty edgy about driving through downtown SF in a car I'd never driven before, on unfamiliar streets on the wrong side of the road. However, the joy that is a GPS made it all so easy. It was quite a buzz to motor over the Golden Gate Bridge and head north.

Hwy 1 North is much like the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, only more wild and isolated. Oh, and I was pulled over by one of Mendicino County's finest today - but no ticket issued. In fact he was a very nice guy and gave me some education on California's speed limits. It's not what you're thinking - I was pulled over for travelling too slowly! Dorothy had a good laugh!


Tonight we are at a motel in the fishing town of Fort Bragg. Had a great seafood meal at the North Coast Brewery, which was excellent and great value compared with San Francisco prices.

Tomorrow to the Humbolt Redwood park and beyond.

Monday 27 September 2010

Napa Valley

We took a bus trip around some of the vineyards of Sonoma and Napa today. It was a boiling hot day in the valley, around 37C at one stage.


Very familiar landscape to Aussies.





 Back in San Francisco we went out for dinner to a restaurant that opened in 1849 - Tadich Grill.
The first is at a famous seafood restaurant, Tadich's.

 A genuine San Francisco cable car.

Saturday 25 September 2010

San Francisco





We had a really smooth flight to Los Angeles, then a connection to San Francisco. Even though smooth, its still a long, long way and we were felling pretty rung out after 15 plus hours of flying! Here are some pics from San Francisco.






Tuesday 7 September 2010

Spring on the Great Ocean Road

The weather forecast promised so much - foggy then sunshine and 16C. The reality of the weather was not quite so good. However, Steve and I managed an enjoyable run along part of the GOR and through the Otways. Being mid week there was very little traffic compared with the weekends.

A scenic spot to stop for a chat.



Actually the GOR was far from at its best today. We've experienced torrential rain in Southern Australia over the past few days. While there has not been flooding along the coast here, there has been significant rain induced damage to the GOR. There were frequent streams running across the road and evidence of many small land slides and rock falls that resulted in a lot of muddy debris, particularly on the cliff side of the road.

The weather changed from sunshine in Lorne to raining in Apollo Bay and part of the way inland up through the Otways.

As the old saying goes, 'it's an ill wind that blows no good' and to that extent is was great to see that the West Barwon Dam is 70% full after these heavy Spring rains. It has not been this full in years due to the succession of droughts we've had.