Into California 10-11 Oct

Saturday. It was a really hot night last night and even though we had put the van up on chocks we were still on a bit of a slope that made me slip down the bed and I became all entangled. So I got up and went for a walk on the beach as the sun started to come up over the Humbug mountain behind me - beautiful, and the sky and sea were so blue. The beach wasn't the most amazing for me.. too much sand and not enough rocks and shells, but I kept myself busy for over an hour watching some grey pelicans fishing, some seagulls arguing over a dead crab, a grey heron stalking prey in the only rocky area and I found the biggest mussel shell ever, at least 20cm long! When I returned to the van the boys were stirring and we had a cup of tea before packing up and getting underway determined that today we would make it to California. But it is never as simple as that.... first, since we have been staying in State Parks which (apart from one exception) have no Wifi, we wanted to find a place to download photos and publish our blog, secondly there are always too many signs to too many places and too many sights to see. And so we spent 2 hours in a small town library which had free Wifi and was having some sort of Womens Institute meeting on the history of the handkerchief!!! They all seemed to be enjoying it anyway and I did hear mention of Peter Rabbit so it can't have been quite as dire as it the brief snippets I could overhear sounded to me. On the way into the town we had crossed a rather amazing bridge and then a boat that had sunk at its moorings and never been recovered, the algae were the most brilliant green on its hull as you can see in the photos. Further along the coast we went for a short walk out onto a headland to see Arch rock which was one of a huge number of rocks off the coast, and then even further south we went for a walk through an amazingly dark pine forest to get out onto a headland to get the view back to a bridge that we were going to cross. Then after some shopping and the gradual increase in the size of trees (!) we finally made it to California, the first state border where we have been stopped to be asked what we are carrying in the way of fruit and veg and firewood. Nearly immediately we turned into the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park and we couldn't even see the tops of the trees because of the front overhang on the van, a large river flowed down the right hand side of the road and Celso was getting more and more anxious to get out of the car and have a look. Just in time a state park camp ground appeared and we had to pull in both mirrors to get in an along the road between the trees. Perfect, a site right on the river with enormous trees (see the picture of Tris infront of the biggest one we found round here) and a huge pile of wood that someone else had left to make ourselves a roaring fire. Tristan found several small frogs in the rocks by the river and Celso was even tempted into the freezing river by the leaps of enormous trout on the far side of the bend in the river where it was much deeper. It was hilarious to watch him suffer the cold - now maybe I understand just how much he loves his fishing! Sunday We awoke to a mist over the trees on the far side of the river but luckily we were bathed in sunshine as it was cold out there! Our tremendous fire from the night before was rekindled with a simple movement of the remaining logs which lifted the spirits too and the fish jumping in the river made Celso all a jitter to get out his rod again. We drove a short way (after some very expert manouvering, even if I say so myself, through some very tight spots - see photo), to a place where a trail was marked. There was a notice explaining that a fungus was infecting several of the trees in the area and causing them to die, so we shouldn't walk off the trail and definately make sure that we carried no mud into or out of the wood as the spores could lie dormant for up to 7 years - scary! Off we set amongst the giant trees and huge ferns for a two hour hike through the woods and along an amazingly aquamarine/turquoise blue river. The trees are so beautiful and we just can't capture their grandeur in a photo, you can't get both the bottom and top in the same photo for a start, and the 3d nature of their bark just doesn't take in the photos. The bark is amazingly spongey to the touch; a bit like those bathtime foam shapes that you can get for kids that stick on the tiles when wet! Then on to Crescent City (the first major town in California on the 101) to try and find some sort of information centre. Crescent City was hit by a tsunami in 1964 after an earthquake up in Alaska. They appear rather pleased with their misfortune and we found the State Park info centre next to the strangely named 'Tsunami Landing' building, there were also leaflets about the Tsunami scout groups and various other Tsunami related street names! Newly informed about our likelihood of seeing whales swimming south and a couple of places 'not to miss' we headed further South on the 101 through more enormous trees. We were just stunned by the whole experience, it must be what Gulliver felt like in the land of giants! Soon we came across the oddly named 'Trees of Mystery' with an enormous statue of Paul Bunyon and his giant blue Ox called Babe ... we didn't know much about Paul Bunyon, but we will soon because I bought a book about the legendary lumberjack hero who, apparently, was so large that one day when he went from Fargo to Seattle dragging an axe behind him he made a rut that is now called the Grand Canyon! At the Trees of Mystery we went for another fabulous walk through more redwoods and other trees but this time with explanatory signs about all the different kinds of trees and some of the ways the redwoods behave. For example, when a redwood tree falls over but remains with a sufficient root system, the once horizontal branches now grow vertically up as new trees so that multiple trees grow up out of the fallen trunk. These new 'trees' don't make their own root systems but the original roots support all the new 'trees' that grow. There was a cable car that took us up to the top of a hill to overlook the top of the trees (of course terrifying for me but fascinating for Tris and Celso) and then we walked down a very steep path labelled 'for expert hikers only' (! probably some way of them relinquishing any blame if you fall) and then through an area of the wood that had been logged in the 1950's enabling you to see how the area was recovering. There were lots of the most enormous stumps with trees growing out of them; they didn't look like new trees but rather the stump regrowing, but I'm not sure! Then we went into a fabulous little museum about different Indian cultures, their clothes, pottery, basket work and the like at the base of the hill; but we were so hungry after our two walks that we didn't spend enough time there to really appreciate it all I think. Now we are showered, fed, laundered and content in a campsite in Klamath, a small Indian settlement on the Klamath river, an enormous river that as yet has not tempted Celso out with his rod, but he is thinking about it and at this moment is sitting tying feathers that we found a couple of days ago at the Safari park onto hooks to make the lure to catch The Big One!