Our USA Adventure - Days 38 to 42 - Five days along the Pacific Highway, Mill Valley to Fort Bragg

The very scenic Point Reyes on the Pacific Highway

We continued our journey north on Highway 1 a most scenic but twisty turny road. Our first stop was on the Russian River via Point Reyes. Point Reyes is a remote cape just up from San Francisco. Many ranches, a cove called Drakes Bay where Sir Francis Drake is thought to have moored to repair the Golden Hind, elk, a lighthouse and elephant seals. We stopped at the visitor centre, as always, before heading up to the end to see young Elephant seals, so posturing and play fighting but no silly big noses. En route we saw elk and deer, and cows! 

Young elephant seals sparring with each other in a remote bay

Moving to the lighthouse to look for whales a very casual coyote walked by us and up the path as if he owned the road. He probably did and certainly put the wind up two ladies with their small dogs! Having spent quite a lot of the day on the peninsula we popped back to the visitor centre carpark to do the earthquake trail. The San Andreas Fault runs straight up the route we were travelling. An interesting bit of fencing showed the distance the ground moved in the 1906 earthquake that damaged San Francisco. We hadn’t gone earlier as it was full of children, so a quick dash round..... except we were stopped in our tracks. When we’d been in the visitor centre she had a picture of a bobcat. I asked if I could “book one” she did say it was most unlikely, but they did have a locally resident one. And there he was! Sitting in the sunshine watching us, watching him. He eventually sauntered off, very calmly, and very hidden. If we hadn’t seen him go, we’d never have seen him. I was obviously very happy! Just talking to somebody today I’m realising how lucky we were, he’s only ever seen two, and his wife has seen none. I’m not sure they believed us, until B showed them the picture, which they were really impressed by. He reckoned being able to take that picture was rarer than seeing a mountain lion, that’s next on my list then!

A beachful of young elephant seals

Our motel at the Russian River was a step up from our normal - options were limited, but was a joy. We had pizza and wine sitting by the river, before going in to our sofa in the lounge!

We watched pelicans catching fish in the isolated elephant seal bay for quite sometime. They would cruise above the water looking for fish and then dive at great speed into the water, resurfacing moments later with their lunch. I made it my mission to get a photo of their dive, you can imagine, it wasn't easy!

From there we’ve come to Fort Bragg, via Fort Ross, the lowest settlement the Russians came to while working in and owning Alaska. I didn’t even know the Russians had been in the US, up it was very interesting. We walked into the compound to find a group of schoolchildren who were dressed up in character, had obviously been learning Russian folk dances, had stayed overnight and really brought the whole thing to life, even though we didn’t have a clue what was going on! Nearly as entertaining was watching gophers throwing soil out of their holes

He posed for us!

Continuing up the road we screeched to a stop to look at something. We didn’t know it was Benjamin Bufano’s Peace Obelisk , Madonna and Child, but we had to stop. It turns out it is in California’s second smallest state park, a 60’ circular park! I brought up Atlas Obscura, a website I keep forgetting about of weird and wonderful things, worldwide, though not this, but I didn’t find out till our next deviation as we had no cell!

We saw two coyotes that day. This one was on the road just outside Point Reyes

Our next deviation was in Point Arena where there is a preserve of African animals. We hadn’t booked so we just drove past, wildebeest and zebra, but we couldn’t see the giraffe! Zebra was not what we expected though. Finally getting a cell, Atlas Obscura brought up something called Bowling Ball Beach, which we’d passed 6 miles back. Having seen the Moeraki boulders in New Zealand we had to go back and have a look. After a little bumbling about we got to the right bit of beach and fortunately the tide was out. We had an interesting chat with a couple on the beach, who didn’t really know anything about them, but had been talking to a guy studying them who said they only exist in two places, here and in Moeraki. We felt entirely vindicated about having gone back to see them! Actually this isn’t quite true, there is another place in NZ, and one in the US and one in Kazakhstan, but don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story. Apparently they were formed by concretion “sedimentary rock formed by a natural process wherein mineral cements bind grains of sand or stone into larger formations. These boulders are the result of millions of years of concretion and erosion, exposing the hard spheres as the mudstone of the cliffs receded around them.” Not what Brian wanted to believe of the Moeraki Boulders, but he’ll tell all on that!

And this one owned the place. He appeared about 20 feet in front of us, gave us a look, strolled by and walked off up the road, causing other people to deviate away from him (who wouldn't?)

We finally got to Fort Bragg, a little later than planned, and just as the tourist information in Mendocino shut. Oh well, that’s why we booked two night here, we’ll come back in the morning. The morning however didn’t really dawn, so much as pour down, eventually stopping to be very misty! We did go to glass beach as it was five minutes walk from the hotel. The beach is covered in smooth shiny bits of glass as apparently the area used to be the town dump. Rather than completely clear it, they have made a feature of the glass, which is all that is left, and it is now illegal to take any glass away! The weather was still pants so we thought we’d do some planning for the remainder of the stay, except the WiFi was also pants. I timed my visit to reception to perfection, the manager had just arrived and just moved us to a nicer room! Planning done we decamped to the second (and much nicer) brewery in town for dinner.

A little further on near the lighthouse two deer crossed our path, ducking under the fence

Got up this morning, to find our nicer room had a problem too. Ants, coming under the wall from next door, up onto the table and after out cereal! We think we’ve dealt with them, but are currently eating the half packet of M&M’s out of my bag, just to be on the safe side! Planning had led us to an extra day in Fort Bragg, and although it’s now hammering it down, that didn’t start till three so we had a great morning. We went on a woodland walk through some redwoods, before going to the Pygmy forest of cypress trees, hundreds of years old but not much taller than me. Apparently the very acid soil has slowed them right down! Into Mendocino for an interesting museum visit and our last chance to look for whales at the Point Cabrillo light station. We haven’t seen any whales, we are a bit in the off season, there may be the odd humpback, but we are between blue whales and grey whales migrating sadly, maybe in another couple of weeks...

There's the lighthouse at the end, but it wasn't open, this was as far as we could go. Couldn't see any whales out there either

Tomorrow we head inland, roughly towards Fred and Maggie, in her house in Bear Valley, where all this rain may be snow. We’ll give it a few days and see if we can make it....

Quailes pottering around

A little further on we were lucky enough to see this bobcat. He was really well camoflaged again, but was just in the open looking at us

He was there for sometime, quite unconcerned, but when he walked off into the long grass he just disappeared

We were on an 'Earthquake Trail' as we were right over the San Andreas Fault line and came across this map showing not one, but quite a number of separate faults beneath San Fransico. The grey areas are solid bedrock, pink areas are unstable bedrock, white is unconsolidated soil and dark pink is mud and fill. The latter three comprise most of San Fransisco and are the most unstable, not a good situation for the millions who live there as there will definitely be further earthquakes here in the future

This was another poster on the strong but lesser earthquake that hit San Fran in 1989 that Victor and Gregg experienced

And this recreation of the ground movement, shown by two fences at the distance the earth moved in 1906. 16 feet (5m)

The drive along the Pacific Highway 1 is continuously beautiful, wild and remote all the way

Our stop at the Inn on the Russian River was a delight. It was cold, but we had this outdoor area overlooking the river so, rather than go out for a meal, we got a huge pizza from the takeaway shop two doors away, opened a bottle of wine and just watched the world go by until it good too dark and cold

The next day we went to Fort Ross, a Russian fort built in 1812 and occupied by them until 1841. It has been largely rebuilt following years of decay and then the 1906 earthquake

You can just see in the corner a Russian Orthodox church amongst the other buildings

There were lots of holes in the grounds and then we saw earth being kicked out of a hole and Gordon appeared!

On up the coast past the B Bryan Preserve with his collection of African animals. Not what you expect to see!

And here's the Benjamin Bufanos Peace Monument

We were looking for Bowling Ball Beach, but this wasn't the way

Eventually we found them - and here they are, arranged as in a bowling alley, stacked side by side on a flat area of rock. It seems almost too organised to occur naturally, the experts insists they are natural, but are they? As Jackie mentioned, we visited the Moeraki Boulders in New Zealand which were very similar. Gavin Menzies wrote a book called 1486, the year the Chinese conquered the world. He believed those in NZ were ballast from a huge Chinese Junk that crashed there. You can read our blog entry on it here

Ron was there watching us

Finally we made it to Fort Bragg. The weather turned very misty and rainy, but the Pacific still has a moody magic about it

This is glass beach. It's really strange that this is now a tourist attraction when, until 1959 it was a rubbish dump, full of old cars, general rubbish and thousands of bottles. Gradually the ocean broke it all down and these pieces of glass rounded by the motion of the waves are now collectors items. So much so that they are disappearing and are now protected. Quite bizarre really, but also a testament to how nature can put right things man has polluted, given enough time

Very pretty, but these went back on the beach

Our walk today through the redwoods

With quite a few of these growing

Along a boardwalk to the Pygmy Forest

The smaller trees here are 100 years old but no higher than 5 feet

The headland around Mendocino is quite stunning as all the Pacific coast is

And look at this for a fabulous lighthouse, still working. It the Cabrillo lighthouse near Casper

These guys were checking us out by the lighthouse. The signs also said mountain lions live in this are but we didn't see any

Down in this little bay on a rock down there are a group of seals snoozing...

There they are

I just wanted to put this photo on. Here the foaming Pacific is battering these Sea Palms on the rock out there. How they survive against the constant pressure of the waves is anyones guess, but they are not alone. They are everywhere and always within the tidal range. They obviously thrive in these conditions, but how?