....excuse me.... another big highlight of arriving in San Diego was receiving care packages from our parents in both New Zealand and Canada. It was great opening them, getting a taste of Christmas and gorging ourselves on delicious chocolate - thanks Mum/Mom and Dad/Dad.
We still can't quite believe we are in San Diego and I still can't believe Roland convinced me to do the last video update - his argument being "what's the point of having a beard if you can't use it?", I didn't have much of a rebuttal! We have spend four nights here in total; resting, doing chores, volunteering (see our 'Salvation Army Journal' page, getting to know our hosts and doing a little touch of sightseeing. We had a couple of hours in Balboa Park which has many facets to it. The parts we most enjoyed was the Historical Police Campaign and looking around the International village that had houses from different parts of the world showcasing their culture (including food). Unfortunately neither Canada or New Zealand had a house! We also took a walk up Mt Helix at sunset to enjoy the view of San Diego. It's been a real pleasure spending the last few days with Linda, Dave and Paul. We have felt very at home and cared for - they also spend a lot of time in Tijuana and have put our concerns at rest. We cycle out tomorrow and will cross the border. Hopefully our Spanish dramatically improves at top speed! Keep us in your prayers and thoughts please...... we'll update again as soon as we're able........
....excuse me.... another big highlight of arriving in San Diego was receiving care packages from our parents in both New Zealand and Canada. It was great opening them, getting a taste of Christmas and gorging ourselves on delicious chocolate - thanks Mum/Mom and Dad/Dad.
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The rollercoaster of beautiful sights, warm welcoming weather and convivial people continues and we find ourselves simply overwhelmed. In Santa Barbara we shared 2 splendid nights with Desmond and Monica who we met through SERVAS. They live in a very cool house with a yard filled with vegetables and fruit trees. Santa Barbara is a striking city with lots of charming parks, old buildings with red roofs, sandy beaches, a huge pier and the best movie theatre ever, Arlington Theatre. We even stumbled across a very talented musician, Owen Plant and took in some of the free entertainment in the city centre. After a truck full of recipes (from Monica who is a very talented cook), a dog buzzer (to keep dogs from attacking us) and a couple of complementary soda drinks we slowly hit the road and made our way to Ventura.
The ride from Santa Barbara to Ventura was neither long nor demanding and this suited us perfectly, as we tried cycling a recumbent bicycle, took in the Sunday Art exhibition along the waterfront and slowly meandered through a fleet of thrift stores in Ventura. Here we met up with some serious cyclists Nicole and Jim who had just completed a 200km trek and still had heaps of spring in their step. How do you wrap up a brilliant day like this? How about pizza, beer and Tim Tams (according to the packaging, Australia’s favourite cookie) for dinner. In complete contrast to the previous day we had a very early start, gritted our teeth and cycled through L.A. city limits – Malibu, Venice and Redondo beaches before reaching Long Beach. Somehow we managed to survive the ciaos of the PCH – Pacific Coast Highway and navigate to Captain Jack’s boat without a street map. Spending the night on the boat was a real treat and watching the neighbouring dogs come aboard the next day for dog biscuits was pretty remarkable. Jack is a kind and generous Captain with a great laugh. We even managed to slip in a few three handed games of crib over coffee before disembarking. Staying in Long Beach for a few more nights over the Thanksgiving weekend, we next hooked up with Steve and Andreah. A super down to earth couple who were very accommodating and a barrel of fun. Having lived in the area for a number of years, they knew all the great dining and night life places, like the local Korean Restaurant that features one dollar Tacos. Sounds weird, but oh so good. Staying up way past our regular bed time of eight or nine, our black bags under our eyes were worth it! A whopping big thank you to Patrice, a close friend of Steve and Andrea, for making a massive Thanksgiving dinner and a special chocolate oreo cake. Out of this world! Steve and Andrea (The ultimate Party People) have many talented and interesting friends, who made us feel right at home. Steve even has a beard that is just a stunning as mine - just to clarify Roland is writing this entry! The road from Long Beach to San Diego is covered with many picturesque beaches and oodles of people. Navigating through this thick traffic, cracked pavement, parked cars that protrude into bike lanes, swinging surf boards and merging lanes took its toll on us, and we found ourselves all bundled up ready for bed at quarter after six. After our 12 hour hibernation we emerged from our tent ready for some more. On our travels into Del Mar we met Steve, a fellow cyclist out for the day, who very kindly offered to shout us breakfast. At the restaurant we also met his good friends Lee and Julia and had a wonderful time swapping stories. Many thanks to Julia for the sunglasses, they work like a charm and match the bike perfectly. It’s incredible that we found our way into San Diego without a detailed street map and without using any freeway. We have a lot of work sorting out things and getting ready for the next stage our trip. In many respects it feels like Alaska all over again. We are a bit nervous and a bit scared. We are leaving all the comforts of an English speaking first world and enter Mexico. Just before reaching Santa Cruz (which is just south of San Francisco) we came across a little bicycling gem - Swanston Berry Farm. They had a honour paying system and welcomed cyclists in with a 10% discount off delicious goods instore. While sipping on our warm apple cidar we perused the cycling journal of other tourists that had passed through. To our surprise we came across an entry a few months earlier by a couple tandem cycling Alaska to Argentina on 'Big Bird'! We thought our name was original but turns out it's natural to name your tandem bike after the oversized yellow bird that filled our TV screens growing up.
We spent two wonderful nights with Deb and Tom in Santa Cruz with the highlight being Belinda winning at a very lively game of Hearts! Our hosts organised a small dinner party with some friends on our first night and on the following night we checked out the Downtown area and found ourselves in a delicious Japanese Restaurant. Tom also gave me (Belinda) a beautiful shell to include on my necklace which I now proudly display. Thank you so much, I really love it! To our excitement, on being welcomed into Paolo and Kim's home in Monterey (a fishing and historic cannery town) we met their beautiful Bernese Mountain Dog, Max. We are entirely convinced that this breed of dog is the one for us - such a lovely temprement and colourings. Paolo (who is originally from Italy) treated us to an authentic Italian meal of pasta and our first taste of Grappa. With an early start we had a terrific opportunity to checkout 17 mile drive, a long private stretch of road littered with very expensive houses and amazing views. At the end of this cycle, the Pebble Beach Golf Course awaited us, the home of the US open 2010. So nice and so rich and we got free smoothies from the Cafe Manager too! After staying in a hiker/biker (very cheap rates) campground just past Big Sur we met up with two German cyclists (Harry and Inge) that we saw in our first week in Alaska. It was pretty crazy meeting up with them four months down the track! This is also the day when Roland cut his hand. He went down to Jade Cove to scout for jade and came back a wounded soldier. There was blood everywhere and the cut was quite deep but fortunately he had his own personal Nurse on hand to give him TLC and to dry his tears! San Luis Obispo and the surrounding Pismo Beach area was our next stop. We stayed with Tom and Nancy for two nights and again was treated to a dinner party with friends and Settlers of Catan (oh yeah). We also got some Scrabble in with Nancy - she's another teacher and clever with her words - RAVAGED! We talked a lot about ANZAC biscuits (traditional biscuit/cookie in NZ and Aussie from War times) and found a good recipe online. IIt's inspired me to try and make them in San Diego for a little taste of home! One night when the sun was setting Tom, Rosie (their dog) and I walked up a steep hill to admire the view and some of the 'Nine Sisters' (Volcano plugs). Rosie was a sweet wee dog with a love for human food. Nancy had warned us about her fantastic sense of smell and so we needed to lock our food in our room. Unfortunately, the door didn't quite latch closed and during our game of scrabble I started to hear a 'rustle rustle rustle'. I raced into our room and found Rosie polishing off a Snickers bar. She looked pretty pleased with herself and wondered what the fuss was all about! Unfortunately she had an unsettled sleep but because of past escapades she tolerated the chocolate pretty well (considering she ate the whole bar!). After spending some time at the La Purisima Mission State Park, one of 24 Historic Missions in California and stuffing our faces with the most tastiest strawberries ever we found ourselves in the company of Joe and Carol and their friends. We had a grand meal of New Zealand Roast Lamb with Mint Sauce, which really made us feel right at home and heard stories of their recent cycling trip to Thailand and Laos. Carol is a very talented artist and she kindly shared some of her work with us. We also got to see her again in Santa Barbara at the Sunday Market selling her pictures. Crib Score: Roland 56 Belinda 38 Things found on the side of the road: * External frame backpack * Fishing net * A 'Ninja' man Interesting fact: * Beullton is 'the home to the best ever Split Pea Soup'. * Monarch butterflies flock to Oceano, CA to a Eucalyptus grove during the Winter months. The day we were there had an estimate count of 8000 butterflies - amazing! Other than our two days of volunteering (see Salvation Army Journal Page) we made the most of our extended visit and took in some of the sights of San Francisco. We had very kindly received an email from James and Jeffry who are friends of a lovely woman Belinda lived with for a short time way back in 2000 in Edinburgh. After looking at our website they were happy to take us in (maybe they were looking at someone else’s) and were very gracious to have us three days early when Big Bird took ill. They live in the Mission District, which is close to downtown San Francisco and only blocks away from “The Best Bakery In The World” (quoted by Nathan who we met on Leggett Hill and just so happens to work at the bakery) and AKA Tartine Bakery. We had the utmost pleasure of experiencing Tartine first hand and was not only thrilled to see a fellow biker-friend again but savour the goodness explosion of the treats we devoured.
The day we walked Big Bird to hospital (City Cycle – thank you!) we kept passing Goodwill Thrift Stores. After about the third one I commented to Roland what luck to be passing so many stores on our route! Roland started to grin and then the penny dropped….. Roland had carefully schemed this zig-zagging path through the entire City to intersect every Goodwill store in the Metro area! We spent much of our time walking around the City, much to the horror of our calf muscles as they are so set in their ways of being shortened rather than elongated. On Sunday we spent the entire day walking through the center of Downtown to the Ferry Building and then along the waterfront. We saw the famous ‘Pier 39’, Pelicans diving into the water for their evening meal (boy, were they fast!), and beautiful views of the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset. Other highlights included: the Zeitgiest Pub where bikes could be brought right into the beer garden, playing house by doing some baking, trying San Francisco Burritos, sharing meals with James and Jeffry, eating the nicest fresh bread for 35 cents at Grand Mission Bakery, going to the movies (first time since leaving New Zealand), watching some trash on TV (sad but true), wearing my very unappealing thermal underwear around the house with no one caring, trying a classy martini for the first time and thinking it’s not too shabby. To complete the Big Bird saga; he has his wings once more. City Cycle fitted a new rim that Co-Motion sent down from Eugene. Co-Motion was once again amazing as we bombarded them with phone calls. We are now carrying an extra rim as although it’s a standard 26-inch rim, we are choosing to have 40 spokes, which is apparently not so common meaning most bike shops don’t have them on hand. On the day we first discovered the rim on the rear wheel of Big Bird wasn’t too happy we stayed the night in-between Arcata and Eureka, California with Wendy, Michael and Tyler (Warm Shower hosts). On arrival, we stepped into a puppet show rehearsal (which was a first) called the ‘Sound of Moolah’, which was a fun way to educate people about the Health Reform discussion going on in the US currently to the theme of ‘The Sound of Music’. We watched 'Touching the Void', shared meals and Michael kindly took me into town to have the Co-op experience. They also had a new addition to the family, a rabbit, which was house trained so was free to hop about the house - how cool is that? We ended up staying two nights, having a restful zero day (as our volunteer work fell through) and making some phone calls about the bike. We decided to chance it and cycle on, as there were no shops that carried the rim we needed.
Not long after we had repaired the ‘Bob’ trailor tire (from its first puncture this entire trip) we came across an abandoned bike. After fixing the chain it was mostly ride able and I used it for the duration of the day. After giving the bike away at a supermarket in Garberville we got back on the Freeway to get to a nearby campground when we got pulled over. This lovely man (by the name of Tom) felt sorry for us cycling in the dark and offered to put us up for the night. We didn’t need to be asked twice and the next minute we found ourselves in a warm, inviting home in the kind company of Tom and his brother, Jack. The next day he offered to take us there and then to San Francisco but we thought we should try to get there ourselves first. He gave us his contact details and insisted we call should anything happen. So we set out and spent the next almost three hours mostly climbing, with the eventual goal of reaching 2000 ft above sea level but that was not meant to be. After a few grumbles we faced reality, set up camp off the road, hailed down some people to call Tom and ate our dry, crumbly sandwiches (lesson: it’s not always worth getting near expired goods, even if it’s massively cheaper). Our last night in Oregon we spent a night tenting in a hiker/biker campground with two other lovely couples that were also bike touring (Meredith/Alex and Abi/Chris). We hope to see them again and so when we were playing cards on Leggett Hill waiting for Tom to come and save us, we wondered if they would cycle past. Then only moments later we did see a couple come around the bend. It wasn't a couple we had previously met but another super lovely two people, Dani and Greg. We got chatting and before we knew it another cyclist turned the corner, Nathan. He had a plastic sword to ward off any plastic Vikings that may thwart his journey. The four of us agreed this was a strange but super cool situation and we continued our biking banter (i.e. Where are you going? Where did you start? Cages or clip-ons? Nice bike shorts you got there, Where did you get that sticker? I think I smell/sweat more than you, Where can I find myself a plastic sword for protection? How far from the top do you think we are? - That kind of stuff). However, it wasn’t long before three more cyclists appeared (Chance, Josh and Nickel). We had a grand old time, sharing stories and generally enjoying the unique moment. This of course made time fly by and before we knew it Tom was pulling up and trying to make sense of our cycling entourage. Although we were very sorry not to cycle the stretch of coast from Fort Bragg to San Francisco, we were very appreciative of meeting Tom and his generous offer to take us all the way to San Francisco. We did try to get a new rim in some smaller towns before San Francisco but to no avail, so heading to the Big Smoke was the answer. We also have the philosophy that although everything doesn’t always go to plan, we have been very blessed with things falling into place just at the right moment, which makes our adventure that much more exciting, surprising and humbling all at the same time. We realize its only been a few days since we last updated our website, but the sights, sounds and beautiful weather have completely blind sided us. We feel like we have experienced so much and had such superb weather in a short amount of time, that are sensory organs are on going to explode. The ride from Eugene to Florence was smooth and offered great views of the country side and the fall colors of the trees. But in hindsight, this was only an appetizer for the spender that followed, for as we headed south the on Pacific Coast Hwy we were spoiled with incredible view after incredible view. We honestly felt like we were dismounting our tandem bike at every turn and although we tried our best, the photos that we have taken do not do the coast line justice. Along our travels we chanced upon a lovely couple in Charleston building a 60 foot “junk-rig” sail boat. To add to the excitement Kim was also celebrating her 43rd birthday. In an attempt to out-do Kim's birthday cake from last year, Robin constructed a massive 4 layered/flavored cake that just swarmed of goodness. Bee's tummy was full for a long time after this feast.
For our 100th day cycling we were further treated to some spectacular scenery and finished the day with some fellow cyclists at a state campsite. Just as our heads were coming to terms with the ocean views, we crossed the Oregon/California Border and were clobbered by enormous trees in the Redwood State Forest. 'Wow' and 'look at the size of that one', were commonly voiced expressions, as we slowly crept through this enchanting park. It really is hard to put into words how awesome this section of our ride has been. And do you think it would stop at this, OH NO! We had to finish our ride by cruising past some wild elk that took no notice of us and continue to graze and laze in the late sun. We have had a great run of late and we cant wait to see what is lurking behind the next bay or past the next hill |
Roland and Belinda
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