Fort Bragg and beyond

With the camper safely installed in the workshop we loaded the BM and headed off towards Fort Bragg , a very old army outpost on coast. We took the 253 as instructed by the mechanics at the garage – both motorcyclists. We weren’t disappointed. A beautiful road changing from forest to coastal to Redwood Forest back to the coast. At Navarro Beach we were greeted by a sign that warned about “the invasive New Zealand Sea Snail”. No idea how it got there but the ranger said it was a real threat to the local snails and small marine life. We had a look at a town called Mendocina. This is a very arty crafty town and is well known for its film festivals. There were none on while we were there. We spent a quiet night in Fort Bragg, walking the streets andstrolling down to the cliff tops to watch the sunset.
We continued up the 1, a magnificent road for motorcyclists. Views for Africa and lovely winding roads.We met a guy on a BMW who was doing the Four Points Ride. You have to go to all compass extremities, i.e NW, NE, SW, SE in 21 days. This guy had been on the road for 18 days and had ridden over 8,000 miles. He said he would easily get to his last check point in the time remaining.

We continued onto a place called Leggart where we visited the “Drive thru Tree”. The bike fitted but no way the camper would have fit. We had lunch in a little logging town called Laytonville. The waitress and the cook were both into blues music and as we were the only customers we got yakking about music and were given a blues CD to take with us. Only trouble is we don’t have a CD player so it’ll be a while before we get to listen to it.
We arrived back in Ukiah about 4 and the camper was almost ready to hit the road again. Damage was just over $1000 but at least we have back brakes now and airbags that work!
We managed to get on the road quite early, meandering our way up the coast. We stopped at a place called Confusion Hill, where there are very strong magnetic currents that effect gravity. We went into a house where you can walk along the wall, watch balls run uphill and numerous other things. I don’t know how it all worked but I came out feeling quite seasick.

We turned off the main route and drove along the Avenue of the Giants. This is a lovely drive through a Redwood Forest. The trees are amazing. We stopped along the way and hiked a couple of the short trails. About half way along the drive we came to a “Road Closed”sign and could go no further. Coincidentally it just happened to be beside the tourist information building so we hopped in for a look. It was very interesting, giving a great pictorial and written history of the area. We also discovered that the road had been closed since February due to a large slip and the road was still under repair. I guess the lack of road signs advising this is so that people still turn up at the tourist centre and buy souvenirs etc.

At the little town of Eureka we saw this amazing house. It was built by a very rich timber merchant back in the 1800’s just to give his employees work during a down turn in business. It is now a private club. It was a male only club for many years but when there was a rumour of the Queen of England was coming for a visit they changed their rules to allow her in, but she never arrived so they now admit women or should I say wealthy business women as well.
We found a nice little camp spot at Clam Beach. Too cold and dangerous to swim according to the camp manager so we just paddled instead. No sign of any clams. I got up early the next morning and went for what I thought would be a nice solitary walk along the beach but to my surprise when I got to the beach there were about 100 vehicles and over 200 people already there. It was a particulary low tide – perfect for claming. I watched for awhile but no one seemed to be getting very many. I even tried digging in what I thought were likely spots but only dug up crabs so gave up.

We saw a herd of elk today. Am impressive sight as they crossed a river. Also saw a whale at Crescent Bay. Still haven’t seen a BEAR!!

After studying the map we decided to head inland for Klamath Falls so we chose the most direct route. Most important when you only get 7 – 8 to the gallon. This turned out to be a very steep, narrow, winding road. Thankfully we never meet anyone on the uphill sections. We were in first gear a few times and could have probably walked faster. It was a very scenic drive, taking us 2.5hrs to cover 46 miles.

We stopped in a town called Ashland to stretch our legs. This town is known as the US Shakespearian Town. It is more like a Shakesperian Facade but it does have a very good music shop with some awesome old guitars for sale.

Having been on the road for a few days we decided we needed to do some housekeeping type jobs, like laundry etc so we parked up in a State Park for a couple of days. Across the road was a Logging Museum which had all sorts of logging machinery from days gone by. It was great and we spent an afternoon there.
From here we were able to jump on the bike and rode up to Crater Lake. This was absolutely beautiful. Cold but beautiful. Never thought I’d get Marty riding in the snow but he is and while he is not singing songs of joy about it he hasn’t made too many grumpy sounds so I just may get him to a Cold Kiwi Rally when we get home after all.