West Coast 2018

£460 raised for Julia’s House so far. Thank you to all who have sponsored me - I am sure this money will help to make a massive difference to the short lives of those children and their families at Julia’s House. 60 miles - A perfect day! After a hard couple of days we thought we’d take it a bit easier today. Set off as usual at about 8am – it was freezing cold. Probably the coldest night so far, but as we got going the sun came out. We found our way to glass beach – famous for having glass that has been smoothed by the sea over the years. Unfortunately the tide was in – so we didn’t see the sea glass but the views were splendid nonetheless. Then came out treat for doing so well yesterday – we stopped at McDonald’s (after only 8 miles!) for one of their breakfast meals (empty calories but once in a while…). We are now following route 1. Unlike the 101 it isn’t a highway (like a trunk road in the UK) rather like a larger B road in the UK. The upside is there is not a huge ...

Day 15 85 miles and 1,750m climbed! That’s over a mile vertically up…. This was the day we climbed the highest point of the western seaboard – leggett Hill. At approx 1,800’ it’s not that high, but it felt it, and getting to the bottom of the big climb involved many small climbs. We started out reasonably early at 7.45am and made it to what we had hoped would be our breakfast stop after 23 miles (a fair proportion of it uphill), only to find it shut. With no alternative we continued on and found a likely café at about 30 miles – they provided us with a hot dog and crisps, which kept us going until we arrived at Leggett – a tiny place where the highway 101 and route 1 split. Route 1 heads to the coast via an epic climb (our route) whilst the 101 stays inland. By this time we were fully roasted – the sun was baking hot and we had been out in the worst of it for hours. We set ourselves up with cold drinks ice creams and fruit then set off up the highest point in the route. As it h...

78 miles and nearly 1,000m climbed – and halfway on our journey reached! What a difference the combination of good weather and beautiful scenery in quiet roads makes! The first few miles went quickly, speeding along the101 (well we might have got to 16mph). We duly had our Eureka moment: And shortly afterwards at Fernbridge we celebrated (with our usual ridiculously large breakfast) getting to our halfway point – we are now closer to Mexico than Canada. A few miles past Fernbridge we passed through a beautiful town called Ferndale. I didn’t take a photo because we knew I wouldn’t do it justice but it was exactly as you would imagine a Victorian American town to look like. It’s the sort of place that we (foreigners) would expect all US towns to look like in the same way that all visitors to the UK would expect every English town to look like Chester. 15 miles along the road we came to a town called Rio Dell which was having its fair – an obvious highlight of which was ...

70 miles and neatly 1,300m climbed – a big day! Set off at 7.45 (or for Simon mid afternoon) and were hit by a huge hill taking us to over 300m, which from sea level is quite a climb fully loaded. We stopped for breakfast after 20 miles at a tiny place – Klamath which had a very popular diner. We were called “boys” which made my day! After breakfast we passed through Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park – a beautiful quite road through Giant Redwood forests – those trees really are immense. It was bizarre – we have been cycling through forests for many many miles through Washington and Oregon, then suddenly when we cross into California it feels like  we’ve entered Brobdingnag. Over the past 800 miles we have seen many signs warning us that elk could be in the road and passed several town like Elk Meadows teasing us with the promise of a sighting of an elk or two but so far it has come to nought – until today when we saw three herds/groups/whatever the plural noun for elk ...

61 miles and into California! We passed some of the most beautiful scenery we’ve encounters so far - stunning coastline with all sorts of weird and wonderful rock formations. The day started with a long climb up to cape Sebastian- but the views were worth it  And the arch was one of many sea stacks and other rock features: Shortly before arriving at Brookings (28 miles into our day) loo and behold Simon Pooler was sitting waiting on the side of the road for us. Just as we’d planned 12 months ago... he was, unsurprisingly at the bottom of the hill. He had arrived at San Francisco yesterday at 4pm, assembled his bike then drove 370 miles to Crescent City, dropping off the car at 9am this morning, then cycling 31 miles to meet up with us. It was lovely to see him - I’m sure he’ll bring some sense to our party of (now) three. After breakfast/lunch and for Simon midnight snack, we headed on to California!! We made it to crescent city (where Simon had start...

64 miles We set off at 7.45 and made 31 miles before stopping at Port Orford for breakfast. After breakfast the sun came out and the views were spectacular We headed off the 101 for 18 miles or so, up into the hills on empty roads. It was really good to get away from the traffic for a while.  Crossing the bridge into Gold Beach we were faced by the bizarre spectacle of what seemed like hundreds of little motor boats all engaged in slow motion dodgems. We arrived at Gold beach and found an RV campsite which has a hiker biker section - where they usually play football so I’m not sure how popular we are. Putting up our tents we felt like monkeys in a zoo, surrounded by these immense homes on wheels. We celebrated our last night in Oregon by having an evening meal out (our first!) - Mexican - what a pleasure! We ended the day watching the sun set over the Pacific Ocean

53 miles Woke up early thinking we might have to cover over 80 miles to the next state park. As it happens we were able to stay with Brian and Nicole at Bandon. Set off before 8am and covered the first thirty miles in no time We saw a flock of Egrets prior to stopping for breakfast: We arrived too early for any of the Charleston diners to be open so we had a coffee before our breakfast (with more coffee). By the time we finished I wa feeling a little wired. After breakfast we set off up the seven devils hill - this has a severe reputation but the views were worth the effort. We arrived at Brian and Nicole’s house knowing they wouldn’t be in until later so we put up our tents, cycled to town to get food then, once showered sat and enjoyed the view from the house of the river Coquille Once Brian and Nicole arrived home we spent a few hours making some new friends (enjoying several glasses of wine in the process).