Eureka to Fort Bragg

Sunday 25th July

This has been one amazing day of trees, zigzig driving and of course MORE mistiness!

We woke up in the glorious boutique Carter House Hotel. This place is just wonderful - breakfast was with real cutlery and crockery. Lovingly fitted out (our room had an armoire) this place really has the old world family feel. (There was even an open fire around which guests could partake of supper.)

Carter house

Most of today we were driving along highway 101. We have been travelling through such delightful older towns ... sometimes it really seems as though they haven't come into the 21st Century ... and that is really nice.

We also made a detour into Ferndale (we read about that one in a guide and are so glad we stopped in), a beautiful Victorian town with people who just love seeing visitors and love being part of Ferndale.  It really is a glimpse back to a time long gone.

Ferndale Public Loos

Main Street

Main Street

Inside the Post Office

And then there were the redwoods ....
the Amazing Redwoods at the Avenue of the Giants, and we are so glad we drove through here - one redwood forest is not the same as another. This is a detour off 101 but really not to be missed. Right at the start we were able to grab the Auto Tour brochure and proceeded to take well over two hours to drive the 40 miles -- well we did have to walk a trail, stop in a gift shop, and of course take a slow drive through the giants! Some of these majestic natural wonders are thousands of years old. Just LOOK at some of these image:

The Trees

Wow!

Bini inside a tree!

Size comparison - just an example.

AND along the way back on 101 is the turn off to the Chandelier Tree ... yes another drive-your-car-through-the-tree tree ... but this is the authentic one, the one we spotted somewhere back down the track when we were planning for this trip.

Driving Through!

Smile!

Of course we did not visit ALL the giant trees - like the Grandfather tree, or the Chimney tree, or the Lightning Tree, or the whatever-you-want-to-call-because-it-is-a-big tree. There are just too many big trees.

Lastly, was the drive to Fort Bragg along Highway 1. Now this is a drive that Bini referred to as a whole lot of zig-zigging ... the speed limit was 55 mph but the car (for about 30 of the 45 miles) rarely went over 20 mph. It was littered with hairpin bends after hairpin bends up, down and around the mountains and was nearly all single lane either side, with rather appalling drops over the side. We climbed to altitudes of over 1000 feet and then within a short few miles had reached the cloud coast again. At the end we were sooo glad to have reached a straight piece of road. It was most definitely the most winding road we have ever driven (or heard about!).

So that's another day on our journey down the west coast of the USA.