Day 463
Records are made to be broken
Today it was back to the Redwoods! First though, we had 10 miles on Route 101, but no coastline as we were heading inland. It wasn’t bad but we were glad to leave it. Our route took us past endless dairy farms on a maze of tiny back roads. In Rio Dell we chatted to Jeff, the local chief of police, well just retired. Back in 1978 he had ridden coast-to-coast and anytime now he plans to ride the route again and hopefully write a book to share his experiences. 42 years, things will certainly have changed.
We rode on and my Garmin announced what was coming up, ‘The Avenue of the Giants’, what a fitting name. Once again we had fantastic weather to ride through a forest. The sun dappled through the deep foliage, highlighting the awesome trees. Mile after mile of near-deserted roads with thousands of these Giants lining the road, we rode on in awe. The campsite, Burlington is set amongst these Giants, what a perfect place to pitch our tent!
The ride to our next campsite was again through The Avenue of the Giants, and boy did it live up to its name. We were blessed with stunning weather again, as yesterday the sun’s rays penetrating through the unbelievably high foliage, creating a magical landscape to cycle through. We met up with Emma and Sam, an English couple we have camped with a couple of times. They were heading to Rock Creek as we were so hoped to see them there.
Now whenever we camp at National or State Parks they are generally in the middle of nowhere, which of course is wonderful but naturally because we can’t just pop to the shops we always want too. Tonight though things were different. Within yards of the campsite there was a shop that sold any and everything a cycle tourer needs, brilliant. Yet it got better. Next door was a pub, The Peg House, motto ‘never don’t stop’. It served great food and beers, I wasn’t really in the mood for a drink so naturally it served homemade lemonade. We sat in a garden surrounded by the tallest sunflowers I’ve ever seen, and a fantastic array of other flowers. They attracted hummingbirds, blue jays and overhead, eagles. After eating one of the best burgers we’ve ever had, the band came on. Now there may have been only at most 20 people sat around but they played as if on the main stage of Glastonbury. Their energy was fantastic. These were talented people and they played music we wanted to listen too. Being in the Redwoods last orders and last song were at 7pm but that suited us cyclists perfectly. Oh what a night! The ‘gang’ stayed 2 nights as they loved it so much, so that means they are only one day’s ride ahead of us!
We had two very big hills this morning so decided to try and get them done before the sun popped its hat on. 7.30 am and we were on the road. Now not blowing our trumpet but we soon had those two big hills done. 2,000 feet, easy! Nicola messaged that the gang had stopped the previous day at 53 miles. We felt confident that not only could we do that but we could probably manage a bit more. We stopped to see a segment of the biggest tree in this part of California. In AD190 is started to grow, they chopped it down in 1943. It took lumberjacks 80 hours to fell this first growth giant. I’ve found it really sad to see so many massive stumps, bearing the footholds that the lumberjacks cut to be able to fell the trees. Twice we have passed first growth trees, so large that a hole had been cut in its base to allow a car to drive through. I really wanted to see these when I was in the UK but now it just feels like vandalism so we cycled on by and didn’t ride through.
The coast line was some of the most dramatic yet. Awesome bays with emerald seas, so many rocks with arches carved into them by the waves and a road that seemed at times just inches from a sheer drop off the cliff to the sea raging below. It was exhilarating and scary in equal measure. A deep sea fog just added to atmosphere.
The miles went by, at 54 miles we passed where the gang had camped the night before. Every mile we rode on from this point was catching up on their ride today. We thought they were doing about 50 miles, we wondered just how much we could do. The first 10 miles were hilly and seemed to take forever. On we went. At 70 miles we stopped and ate some tea. Feeling refreshed we pushed on. We believed they were at a hiker-biker site at 105 miles. We couldn’t get anywhere near that could we? The 80 mile point was reached, then 85, no problem. The sea fret was now a dense fog and the light was failing. Still feeling strong we pushed on but common sense made us realise that riding in darkness on a narrow windingcoastal road wasn’t the safest place to be. At 90miles we decided to stop. We could book a motel for the night, beyond this point it would a further 15 miles to a campsite. Reluctantly we pulled to a stop. We knew this had been a big day in distance but we were thrilled to see that we had smashed our climbing record. At just over 6,400 feet we had climbed a third more that our previous day’s record, all that time ago from Malaga to Granada (x2). We felt we’d earned our lovely if rather expensive hotel!
