Approaching San Francisco (SF)

The Golden Gate bridge. A real highlight of the trip.

Cycling over the Golden Gate bridge was a real highlight of the trip so far. I had finally arrived in San Francisco. I had never been before. My friend Janey asked what song was I singing as I crossed. To be honest it was really windy so I was actually hanging on for dear life. And trying not to knock down some of the hundreds of tourists with their selfie sticks. After a lot of rain, me and my wet tent parked ourselves at a lovely old hostel on the Marin Headlands. It's off season, so the hostel was quiet and I totally took over the whole basement with my tent, sleeping bags, soaking shoes, mats, dry bags etc. Heaven.

A random grocery store on route to SF with a piano,
just tucked in between the crisps and cokes.

My stove died in one of the campsites approaching SF. So I borrowed one
of these fancy new Jet Boil thingys. The trowel/spoon is a good fit don't you think?

You have to cycle through a long tunnel to get to the lovely Marin Headlands.
Like load of other tunnel along the route, cyclists just press the button before entering the tunnel, so the cars
know there are cyclists inside. 

I was very very fortunate to bump into as close as thing as you'll get on the road to a guardian angel in a hostel on the Marin Headlands. Her name is Sarah Burch. She blogs under honoringmycompass.com. When I met her she was working for the ACA and in the middle of guiding about 10 paying guests along the route I was riding, on a supported basis i.e. they have a van and accommodation is booked each night. The ACA is a pretty important part of bike touring life in the US. It stands for Adventure Cycling Association. It has mapped 45,000 miles of bike routes in the US. If anyone reading this wants their next holiday to involve biking in the US (would highly recommend) then this is your man. Most cyclists I meet are using ACA maps to guide them down the Pacific Coast route.

Once Sarah heard what mischief I was up to she immediately contacted her friend Jill in Santa Barbara. She emailed Jill and suggested Jill host me when I passed through SB. Within about five milliseconds the pair of them had arranged for me to stay with Jill and also to give Sarah a bag of 'stuff' that I didn't particularly need over the next two weeks. So off Sarah drove in her van the following morning with about 6kgs of 'stuff' including my laptop. They said I'd really notice the difference climbing up the Big Sur, a national park a couple of hundred miles south of SF. As I said, an angel. And I did.

This is Sarah. 

Alex was also staying at the hostel. He is from Germany and has just rode in from Alaska. On a titanium bike. Bike nerds reading this (i.e. Fergus/Julian) should zoom in. He has a Rohlhoff hub like gadget in between his pedals... and a the axis of his back wheel. He is blogging under boundlessbiker.com and he a great photographer!

This is Alex. 

And last but not least I met these two lovely ladies in the hostel. Suzanne (middle) is a writer and big fan of Ireland and John O'Donoghue's writing in particular. She blogs under creativitygoeswild.com. She was so convincing that I actually downloaded Anam Cara onto my Kindle. Kerri (left) well let's just say she's a pretty hardcore athlete from Melbourne who came to the US to ride the Sierra Cascades route... a much tougher route than the one I'm on. It also goes from north to south, border to border, just slightly more inland. If interested have a look here. I had met Kerri a few days previously at a campsite so it was lovely to meet a somewhat familiar face. The 3 generations of travelling ladies got on like a house on fire. And we spent hours putting the world to rights.

Keri Anne McKenna from Melbourne and Suzanne Murray from San Francisco.

Things were getting a little scarce this particular day.
I didn't realise corn tortillas need to be toasted.
Popping out the gas stove at lunch, sure it's no problem

Orla H are you impressed? I have not looked back since discovering the wonders
of the hard boiled egg.

So much rain approaching SF that the bike path had almost disappeared.

Pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere.