Time to turn around, and start on the road back north. We had a short-ish day of riding planned, so didn’t leave until early afternoon. When we woke up, Dave and I went to visit his office in Sausalito, and then to a nearby cafe. We queued for about 45 minutes, and just got seated when Ben and Laurie arrived to join us.
Another successful American diner breakfast passed by pleasantly, and we then headed back via the scenic route to pack up, shower, load the bike and head slowly back towards home.
The end of Dave’s road, about 80 meters from his house, is California Highway 1. This California road follows the coastline all the way down the entire state, and this was the route we followed today. It is uncompromisingly curvy and scenic in equal measure, and we rode many hairpins and steep climbs accompanied by views of the Pacific that are the stuff of postcards and paintings.
The riding was not always easy as the twists and bends were unrelenting in parts, so often I couldn’t do much more than sneak a look at the views, but it was a lot of fun to ride. We passed out 1000th mile of this trip just as we passed through Point Reyes. The sun glittered on the sea for the first 2 or 3 hours, and every town looked like a tourist advert. We also saw pretty deer crossing the roads at least twice.
We stoppped for a hot drink in Jenner, and ate a cookie each (oatmeal for Dad, chocolate/coconut for the boy). By the late afternoon it got quite overcast and cool, and the last hour we rode was almost cold. We arrived at our hotel in a pretty little harbour called Point Arena. The next town along is called Manchester, and I tried to find us accomodation there (just because of the English Manchester connection), but this was the nearest we could find.
The hotel is quite dated, but the room is lovely, the views great, and the little pizza shop at the bottom of the drive was rather good too. After supper we each had a soak in the hot jacuzzi, and I am trying to stay awake now as I catch up on the blog. Tomorrow is a full day, so we will go back to our routine of an early start, and breakfast an hour or so from the set-off. Night night all…..
