Welcome to the Motel California...

Relaxed and rejuvenated after our stopover in Samoa, we boarded the plane for the last bit of our trip - ten days driving up the coast of California, from Los Angeles to San Francisco. It was a long, boring overnight flight from Samoa - interrupted only by something I would rather have missed out on. I had been snoozing and woke up to feel something tickling my face. I thought it was the edge of the blanket - but no, it was something big and black and beetley - a big, black beetle - and it was crawling over my nose. Aaaaaarrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhh! I tried to control myself since there were people fast asleep all around me (including Gareth) but it would probably go in my Top 5 nasty moments of this trip. Luckily Gareth got hold of it and squashed it. No more high-flying for that little critter...

Arriving in LA we easily got through immigration and customs and over to Avis to pick up our car - a Red Chevrolet Cobalt (yes, it went much better than the Nissan Sunny). Our next challenge was negotiating our way out of the city - quite stressful with the lack of sleep, being on the wrong side of the road and armed with such a hopeless map. We managed to get lost a few streets out of the Avis car park but got back on our way, heading for Santa Barbara, our first stop.

California dreaming

I believe that in foreign countries you should do as the locals do so we stopped along the way at 'Jack in the Box' for the biggest, greasiest cheeseburger I've ever had. It was disgusting but at the same time, absolutely delicious and just what we needed to keep us going until we reached our home for the night - the Sandpiper Lodge. We'd booked this motel in a panic over the dodgy internet connnection in Samoa - realising that without a place to stay when we arrived in LA immigration would probably deport us right away - and we weren't sure what to expect - but what a lush room - a bathroom with mini bottles of shampoo and shower gel, a massive TV and a bed the size of Croatia. Bliss.....

How's about that for a campervan and a half?

Next day we discovered that Santa Barbara was a beautiful little place and we didn't have enough time there to explore it properly. The Spanish-style buildings are stunning and the weather was great - the town seemed to be bathed in an orange glow.

High noon at the OK Corale

There were loads of great shops, streetside cafes and everyone walks around with their dogs (we've realised now that California is a state of dog lovers - they go EVERYWHERE with their owners).

While we were there we visited El Presidio, an old Spanish fort from the time when California was part of what is now Mexico. The fort crosses over several streets and is slowly being restored. We also visited the County Courthouse - still in use and decorated with a very Moorish style and great views over Santa Barbara and its surrounds.

Well, only when I'm burning

Still, we had to move on to San Simeon where we were due to stay the night. We were late leaving and it was further than we thought - along the way we got hungry - story of our lives! Gareth spotted a bright red neon sign for 'Margie's Diner' so we pulled in for some food. Well, like I already said, best to live like a local when you're abroad. It was exactly what you'd expect from an American roadside diner, benchseats in booths, old movie pictures on the wall and loads of food. Gareth ordered a strawberry milkshake which was served in a giant glass plus there was a metal can that held the rest of the milkshake (we were still drinking this from a takeaway cup in the car for the rest of the journey). I ordered a half salad (thank goodness) while Gareth went for the Philly Beef and Cheese sandwich. I think pictures are the best way to describe this 'sandwich'.

'Eat while you can' as we always say

Next morning we were up early to visit Hearst Castle, one of California's State Parks and the former residence of William Randolph Hearst, the Rupert Murdoch of his day - his day being the 1920s onwards. Hearst inherited the land from his parents and decided to build the mansion home of his dreams from scratch - filling it with treasures he had collected during his life - meaning that the place is like a museum with ancient tapestries, silver pieces, greek pillars and furniture - plus so much more. Pretty impressive. Hearst Castle is also famous for the stunning Neptune Pool in the grounds, ripped up and rebuilt three times during its construction because Hearst had decided it wasn't 'quite right'. There are zillions of photographs of this gorgeous black and white pool with bright blue water - and as our tour guide guide said - we were the lucky ones to get a rare photo of the pool without any water as they undertook repairs!

Lounging by the pool

From Hearst Castle, it was back on the road for the drive to Monterey, our next stop. We'd done a bit of driving on our trip, a lot of it in Australia and one thing you could usually rely on in Oz was that when you got out of your car, there would be a pretty spectacular beach waiting for you ... of course there would usually be something waiting to kill you too. At least we didn't have to worry about that on Californian beaches - right?

All we need now is a rattlesnake to join the party

We managed to dodge the beach hazards and reach Monterey Bay safely - our home for the next few days. I don't need to tell you that we arrived with no accommodation booked - in fact nothing planned at all - but once we'd found ourselves a motel for the next couple of nights we headed off to the pier to explore.

It didn't take too long before we'd booked ourselves into a whale-watching tour the next morning - something we'd thought about doing in New Zealand but had ditched in favour of the fantastic dolphin swimming. Not only was it much, much cheaper in California but I'd also just found out that I'd had a tax rebate - bargain - and now it was burning a hole in the pocket of my (well-worn) action trousers.

Of course this meant a dreaded early start for me but it had been days since the last one, (back in New Zealand I think). They warned us that it might be cold on the boat, so we wrapped up in all the clothes we had - and a good job too because it was colder than the Minus 5 bar in Auckland.

We're not smiling, it's just our faces are frozen

The boat chugg-chugged out of the harbour and on the way we were all hanging over the edge, eager to catch a glimpse of sea otters, seals and sealions (yes, they are different, I think the only thing they have in common is that they all attract SHARKS).

'They're waving!'

The plan was to spot some grey whales - they are among the biggest whales on the planet so we had a good chance, but as our over-excitable marine biologist guide pointed out distant smudges in the water I began to realise why whale-watching in New Zealand was so much more expensive - it is so much better. It was all pretty disappointing and then we had a treat - a lone killer whale close to the boat. Pretty cool and made it all worthwhile.

After our early start we were both ready for a lazy afternoon so we headed off to Pebble Beach. This is a posh gated community (we had to pay to get in) with some top notch golf courses, hideously expensive properties and exclusive shops. Hmmm, not ideal when you're on your last few pennies - but there were some great sea views along the way. Seeing as I had not driven since we collected the campervan in NZ, I thought Pebble Beach would be a suitable place to get back in the saddle so-to-speak and try my hand at driving on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road on the wrong side of the world. I must have driven about 200 yards before I pulled over and decided to leave driving until I got behind the wheels of my beloved Mini at home. The stress was bad enough for me but I felt sure that Gareth's brain would explode with tension if I carried on much further and it would be a shame to have to start divorce proceedings so close to going home.

The Lone Cypress - it's famous....apparently

Over to Mr Rees for the rest of our Californian odyssey...

The following morning we had decided that we had to go to Carmel, which is a small town just south of Pebble Beach. Carmel may be famous for many things in America, but in Britain it is famous only for being the town where Clint Eastwood was once Mayor.

Carmel is very posh, everything there looks just perfect, people walk their dogs around and then carry the smaller ones around the shops with them like they are young children. We had a look around a few of the shops, but it soon became clear that we weren't going to be buying anything here on our end of trip budget, so we headed to the beach for a walk.

Sunny Carmel-by-the-sea

After our morning in Carmel we needed to continue heading north towards Santa Cruz, but decided to do a detour to San Juan Bautista on the way. This wasn't as easy as it should have been, as we had a very limited tourist map that only really showed you where hotels were and the signposting was rather limited.

Ah, so this is the way to San Jose but do you know the way to San Juan Bautiste?

Eventually we managed to get there to find a small town that seemingly consisted of only antique (junk) shops and the Mission San Juan Bautista. Oh yes, and the San Andreas Fault.

Jess got there before us

The mission San Juan Bautista is built right on the edge of the San Andreas Fault, (the reason for California's earthquake issues!) and apparently they are overdue a another large earthquake. In the mission they actually have an old seismograph, which is great because you can keep an eye on it so that you know when you're going to die.

You have been warned!

Apparently the bell tower here was used in the 1958 Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo, with James Stewart. Neither Sarah nor I have seen it, so it's another one to add to the list of films we need to see now that we are back.

We ventured out of the mission to go for a walk along El Camino Real, an old road which is now a footpath and cycle track, but it was a short walk, because this actually follows the fault line and we saw no reason to take unnecessary risks.

Earthquake Walk? How crazy can you get?

After the excitement of risking our lives at the mission we decided that we'd carry on up to Santa Cruz, which is apparently the surf city of northern California. Obviously we hadn't booked any accommodation in advance, so we had to find somewhere to stay. With our motel discount book in hand we headed to the cheapest places we could find. Our first stop was in the Riverside Avenue Travelodge, where the proprietor decided to ignore us for the first minute that we were stood in front of him, not a good start. We had a look at a room, which was fine, but decided to have a look elsewhere first. We told him that we would think about it and he assured us that there was nowhere else in Santa Cruz that we would find an available room cheaper, so we went next door and booked in there. Sarah took control of the negotiations, which went along the lines of,'next door is cheaper, but you seem much nicer and we'd like to stay with you, what can you do about the price?', after a few long silences Sarah had saved us $10 a night! I was very proud!

I have to say that I was a bit disappointed with Santa Cruz. I had expected a Californian version of the Gold Coast in Australia, but to be honest the seafront was more like a Californian version of Barry Island. It had a funfair on the boardwalk and lots of fast foodstalls and tacky shops. I was quite surprised because there seemed to be hardly any surf shops there and the shops they had reminded me of Fat Willy's Surf Shack in Newquay.

We had a walk along the boardwalk to the pier, where we had a healthy meal of fish and chips - after walking up and down the pier a few times we settled on the busiest looking restaurant that had a takeaway counter. They were pretty good too, but not up to the standards of Albany, Western Australia. As some of you may know, Sarah loves the seaside and there's nothing that she likes more than going rockpooling, so having read in the Lonely Planet guidebook that there were fantastic tidepools up the road we headed there for a look around. After fifteen minutes of searching the beach we discovered that there were no tidepools here at all, even though it was at the dead of low tide, perfect rockpooling time. Sarah was rather annoyed, so I took her to find something to eat to cheer her up.

Crufts-by-the-sea

It was in Santa Cruz that we discovered that you can get great coffee in the petrol stations at a fraction of the Starbucks prices and Sarah introduced me to Krispy Kreme donuts. It's no wonder they have problems with obesity in the states, those donuts are great!

We had a bit of a late start the next morning and headed into town to find some breakfast. The first place we found was called Zachary's and was absolutely chocka. They had a fifteen minute wait for a table, which must be a good sign, so we put our name down on the queue list. It was worth the wait, the breakfasts we had were fantastic, Sarah had some kind of corned beef hash and I had some massive mixture of eggs, bacon, fried potato hash and heaven knows what else. The service was great too, my coffee cup never went any lower than half full before being topped up. If you're ever in Santa Cruz and hungry, I would recommend it.

With our appetites for the day completely sorted we headed up the road to do a have a look around the shops. After we got bored of that we went back to the beach for a walk and to watch the 300 surfers in the water at Steamer Lane, one of California's premier surf spots. It was crazy out there, the waves were pretty pants and there were loads of surfers going for every wave, it didn't look like much fun, and the water looked very cold. (Particularly after Samoa.)

Gareth shows the locals how it's done (not)

Actually I lied earlier - there is of course something that Sarah loves more than the seaside and rockpooling - funfairs - so we hopped back in the car and went back to the boardwalk. It was a good job that we did too, because we arrived to find that it was closing in ten minutes. Luckily we had just enough time to get a ride on the Big Dipper rollercoaster. This is the same rollercoaster that was used in the film 'Lost Boys', it's pretty good, because it's old and you feel like you could fall out at any moment.

Viva Las Vegas

After another visit to the coffee and Krispy Kreme donut shop (aka petrol station) we retired for the evening.

Next day we had to get to San Francisco by 3pm to return the hire car, but first we had to stop in a music shop in Santa Cruz for me to buy a guitar. After much consideration I went for a Daphne Blue Fender acoustic guitar, which sounds lovely (when someone else is playing it) and looks pretty cool too.

On our way north we stopped at the legendary big wave surf break, Mavericks, at Half Moon Bay, but as usual it wasn't breaking. Not that I would have considered going for a surf there if it had been breaking, I'm not completely mad.

San Francisco was very easy to drive into and we were soon checked in at the Van Ness Motel for the next four nights (with some more wheeler dealing from Sarah). We had to return the hire car to Fisherman's Wharf, which is the real tourist centre in San Francisco and in order to get there we needed to drive down one of the really steep streets that they use in car chases in films like Bullitt - this would have been more exciting if we hadn't been doing an average of 2 mph because the car in front had somebody standing with their head out of the sunroof taking pictures!

Fisherman's Wharf was really rather tacky, just a mass of touristy junk shops and lots of restaurants. As well as a few 'performance artists', such as the guy who was crouching down on the pavement behind a tree branch, then jumped out at Sarah and gave her the fright of her life. Unsurprisingly we didn't give him any money.

There was this one time, at band camp.....

That night we hopped on the bus and went to the Italian neighbourhood, called North Beach, for dinner. We had a lovely meal and then went back to the motel, because we had to be up early next morning for shopping!!

The following day we headed to Union Square, with more shops than you can shake a stick at - Macy's, Saks, Bloomingdale's - you name it they've got it. It really is amazing how much cheaper clothes are in America, we were particularly fortunate as well, because we were getting $2 to the pound. After an exhausting day around the shops, Sarah and I walked back through Chinatown that evening (the largest Chinatown outside China) and had a lovely meal (with some Tsingtao beers), which again was huge, but we were able to take what was left back with us in boxes to have the next night, bargain!

Union Square

The next day we were going to Alcatraz first thing in the morning to try to avoid the crowds. The trip was great, the crossing was smooth and we were deposited on the quayside to start our tour of the island and the prison (penitentiary). They have an audio tour that you follow around the prison and it tells you the story as you go along, it's narrated by former inmates and guards from the prison and it's very good.

When you've been through the prison you come out on the other side of the island, where you get fantastic views of the San Francisco skyline and the Golden Gate Bridge. It must look fantastic at night. You can also do the tour of Alcatraz at night, which must be very spooky.

There are many stories of inmates who tried to escape by swimming from Alcatraz, but none that are proven to be true. It seems very unlikely that anyone would survive the swim from the island, particularly as the area between Santa Cruz, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Farallon Islands is known as the 'Bloody Triangle', because it is the shark attack capital of California! After hearing this Sarah was very pleased that I hadn't been surfing in California.

It was definitely worth making the trip over to Alcatraz though.

I wouldn't fancy swimming it

After catching the ferry back we went to the Boudin sourdough bakery on Fisherman's Wharf, where they do a great meal which is a hollowed out loaf of bread filled with either chilli or clam chowder. Neither of us fancied the clam chowder and the chilli was great. The weather was quite cool, so the chilli warmed us up nicely.

Eating again

Somehow we managed to fit in an ice cream sundae at Ghirardelli's that afternoon as well, although I'm not sure how, because they were huge.

and again....

We had big plans to cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge the following day, but in the end we decided that it was too cold, too windy and we didn't have the energy (or warm enough clothes) - and with only one day of our trip left to go we were flagging. We ended up chilling out for the day with a look around the shops, a few coffees and some more food at Lori's Diner. Lori's Diner was on the first floor above some shops and as you went up the steps you thought it would be quite small, but it was actually huge. I had a Hot Dog with Chilli and Cheese and Sarah had a Cheeseburger, both washed down with Cherry Coke. Fab!

and again.

Lori's Diner

The day of our return home dawned and we were up early, we checked out of our motel and headed down to Fisherman's Wharf, so Sarah could pick up a few last souvenirs. She left me in a cafe trying to get breakfast, I ordered it and after 25 minutes there was still no sign of it, so I gave up and went to find Sarah. I ended up getting a platter of cheese and fruit from Starbucks, which was a bit disappointing, as I was hoping to have a big American breakfast on my last morning there, but it wasn't to be.

All along our trip, we'd often wondered what were the best things we'd brought with us. This tended to change depending on where we were but when you're living out of a rucksack you start to love the things that bring you a bit of comfort. For me, it was my trusty trainers (even though they smelt - really bad) and for Sarah, it was her stripey Smartwool socks. She thought they were fab - a six-month substitute for slippers and they could be worn for days and they didn't stink (well, that's what she said and I suppose they didn't stink as much as mine but my feet, socks and shoes are somewhat legendary in the stinky department.) I had even been persuaded to ditch my original socks and invest in some new wool ones like Sarah's.

We'd had brilliant time away, with the freedom to take nearly every day as it came and see so many new things, our worries were only ever along the lines of 'Where are we going to sleep tonight?', 'What will the in-flight movie be?' and 'Is this Nissan Sunny EVER going to make it over this hill?'.

It's hard to wave goodbye to all that freedom and go back to what you know, but we believe in watching out for omens and taking notice of them. As we waited in the motel to be picked up by the shuttle bus and begin the long journey back to Wales ... wondering whether it really was time to go home, we caught sight of an omen. I don't think there can be a better sign than this:

Signing off as Globetrotters, Gaz and Saz.
THE END