California. Well it certainly isn't all
sunshine and attractive girls.
I mean, obviously there's me, so the
attractive girl part is taken care of. But the sunshine thing? And
the beautiful beaches?
If I was at school I would be writing
lines on the chalk board: 'I must lower my expectations. I must lower
my expectations, I must lower my expectations'. After all how can any
inferior American State compare to home? It can't. So I will solider
on.
Screw you California! You and your
false promises of warmer weather. The type of weather that normal
people [not just Canadians] can go swimming in.
And a beach that actually looked....I
don't know, less like a big ugly black sand pit......
It's all lies! Lies and false promises
and and and and....I don't even like your tractors!
So far I've seen a fair number of cows.
Which depending on your species or/and sexual preference could be
classified as attractive girls.
And gee whiz, since I left Oregon I've
only ever had a vague idea of where I am.
I crossed the boarder and true to form
the landscape changed pretty much on the dotted State line. Rolling
hills turned into flat farm land. There was a sign with a bicycle
pointing down a side road. Dubiously I followed the sign. Two hours
of apparent aimless meandering along dairy farming back roads,
bouncing along pitted, manured coated single lane alleys behind
tractors and beside giant red barns [any one of which Clark Kent
could have been raised in] and I was getting afraid that the
California bicycle route people had only had enough money to put up
one sign. The State is stone broke after all.
Then I saw a second sign. More bouncing
ensued. The road was probably made back in the 1800's by an Amish man
on a donkey. Then I was back on the....Freeway? Since when was the
101 Pacific Coast Highway, a Freeway?! While I'd been dodging cows
and inhaling more manure flavoured air than I'd ever wanted to, my
sweet little two lane highway, so tranquil and calm, had grown into a
big angry dual carriage way.
Traffic roared North!
Traffic zoomed South.
Cars, trucks, buses, rv's, humves,
SUV's, something that looked like it wanted to be a tank when it grew
up....they were all there on My Road! It was too noisy. When a
bicycle sign popped up pointed away I followed it eagerly. Wondered
where I'd end up this time.
I was sort of aiming for Crescent city.
Though I wasn't aiming too hard. Motivation was lacking that day and
I just wanted to pitch my tent and read my book. To hell with the
rest of the world.
But I didn't have a map. So I didn't
know where I was. And even less idea where I could pitch my tent.
From several conversations I'd had, I knew that south of Crescent
City was A Hill. Which is a cyclist speak for an
incline of demoralising proportions. I also knew that the camp site I
had in mind was also south of Crescent city. Probably on the other
side of this Hill.
You can see my dilemma. Climbing a Hill
at the end of a long day, when I really just wanted to read my book
simply wasn't going to happen.
Book defeats Hill!
But I didn't want to spend lots of
money on a camp site either.
Yes I know, cheap And unmotivated, can
I get any more difficult.
The answer to my prayers was Dawn. Dawn
was sailing past me on her way home when I yelled at her and waved my
arms like a distressed swimmer.
Dawn, instead of cycling faster to get
away from me, did a u-turn and came back.
Turns out she worked at the prison, and
far from offering me a cell for the night she pointed me in the
direction of a county park.
I have no idea what it was called or
even how to get back there.
Think, Pirates of the Caribbean. This
park can only be found by those who already know where it is. It was
off the side, of side road, hidden amongst towering red woods, in the
middle of a rural suburb without any sign posts at all. This camp
ground did not want to be found.
Even with Dawn's precise instructions I
rode past it twice before I notice a small gap in the trees leading
into the heart of the park.
It was dark amidst the trees. Nervously
I pitched my tent and was later discovered by the camp host. I knew
he was the camp host because it said so on his t-shirt. 'CAMP HOST'
it declared across his bulging camo patterned chest. He was a big
fat, scary looking dude living alone in a forest and obviously
deterring anyone from actually camping. I gave him money and
mentioned briefly that I was a martial arts expert with several tours
of....New Guinea with the SAS.
Had bear mace.
And an emergency beacon.
A big brother called JAKE who 'worked
for the government'.
Satisfied that I 'camphost' would leave
me the hell alone I went off and read my book. It was a very good
book.
Somehow despite being impossible to
find, other campers turned up to stay the night. Much to my relief.
The next day I went to Crescent city
and met a guy called Tom who was a bike mechanic. He told me that
this Hill had
an exaggerated reputation and it was infact merely a hill.
I
left Crescent city and tackled this hill. Fourteen hundred feet. Two
miles. Yes it was a bit of a hill. But it certainly wasn't A HILL.
Plus
I stopped to chat two times on the way up. Firstly I met an Aussie
couple from New South Wales in a pull out. They offered to give me a
lift up the Hill. But everyone had made such a big deal out of it
that I had to make it to the top under my own steam. Further up I met
more French Canadians, cyclists. Two guys who'd come up from San
Deiago. Eventually I reached the top. Found the turn off to my camp
site.
WARNING!
If
you are currently cycling the Pacific Coast. Do NOT, stay at Mill's
Creek Camp ground.
It's
a lovely campground.
It
has nice showers, a great biker hiker area. Cheap rates.
And
it's at the bottom of the darn hill. On a one way access road. That
means that you go down...forever.
Then
in the morning....you cycle up.....for eternity!
So
in effect you cycle up that 'HILL' that everyone freaks out
about....Twice.
It
took me an hour to get up that darn hill in the morning.
The
view was pretty awesome from the top. Pacific ocean slate flat and
grey blue merging perfectly with the sky. So similar in colour and
texture that it was difficult to tell where one left off and the
other began.
Then I started through Red Wood
Country.
Holy Tree what a big Crap!
Ahem.
I mean to say; Holy crap what a big
tree!
Northern California's Red Wood
Forests....they are so big there's is no room in my head to put the
words together!
Big Trees! Old Big Trees! I saw one
today that was 1500 years old and holds the somewhat dubious title of
being the '14th biggest tree in the State'. Considering
that there is only 5% of old growth Coastal Red Wood forest left,
that isn't exactly the biggest boast it could have. Still I'm
impressed it was 'a very big tree'.
The more I 'grow up' the more I do
wonder about humanities claim to being the most intelligent species
on the planet.
The ranger said that people didn't
realise that if they logged all the Red Woods that the Red woods
would..like....disappear.....
I mean common' people! Are we really
that dumb?
I guess we are, because we've done the
exact same thing back home. Wandering around amongst these enormous
trees I had some Tasmania flashbacks. These trees are a little larger
than the ones back home, but not by much. And just like these folk,
it took lots of effort to stop logging companies from taking all the
forests down and turning it into toilet paper.
Does anyone remember those
advertisements from a few years ago. The ones that tried to tell us
that you could log an old growth forest and replant it and it would
grow back in exactly the same?
Humanity! If we aren't all dead by the
end of the century it will not be from lack of trying.
Did you know that there is a bug in
Canada? [There is probably a few more than that, but I'm talking
about a species I've forgotten the name of]. A red beetle that lays
lava in the trees. Historically most of the lava freezes over winter.
But the winters haven't been cold enough in recent years. Global
warming maybe? So the all lava is surviving. And it is eating the
root system of the trees. The trees are dying in their hundreds.
Leaving large tracks of dead dried out wood that fuel huge forest
fires. When I was travelling around Canada last year there was at
least seven large forest fires raging out of control in British
Columbia.
Fishing villages I have cycled through
are mere remnants of their former selves because people thought that
if they fished all the fish that there were to be fished, then more
fish would simply arrive from the depths of the sea for all
eternity.....
The dolphin's of West Australia's
Monkey Mia, were overfed by tourists. As a result the dolphins hung
out in the bay and never taught their babies to hunt...and thus
several generations of dolphins were lost until people figured out
not to feed the dolphins.
A park ranger told me a story of a
woman who smeared honey on her child so she could get a photograph of
a Grizzly bear licking their face.
Ladies and gentlemen I present you with
the evolutionary abnormality that is Humanity!
[The child was killed, encase you
wondered...though I'm sure the photograph was.....deplorable].
Ah but I'm being depressing
again...sorry for that.
It is just I meet people. So many Many
People. From the world over. For little neighbourhoods. From cities.
From universities, from underneath tractors and up trees. Just
people. And again and again I hear them telling me, 'there isn't
enough water,' it isn't as cold as it should be, the plants are
dying, the animals are dead, the river is polluted. The ocean is
empty. There is too much rubbish!
Everyone is whispering it: 'Our planet
is dying.'
This 'green movement' is merely an
easing of our guilty conscious. The world is not going to be saved if
you don't use plastic bags. It isn't going to be ok if you buy 'less
packaging'. It isn't helping if we take to the hills and hope that
urbanisation will not catch up with us.
…...I was talking about something
happier before I got sidetracked by morbidity.
Trees! Have been looking forward to
this part of the world for some time. Cycled down through them all
afternoon. It was very pretty but I was doing that annoying thing
that I do by accident.
I was thinking: 'Valley of the
giants....this is lots like Tasmania. Or Pemberton.....on
steroids....' Why is it that the more I see, the more it takes to
impress me? I'm getting immune to marvels. It sucks.
The tree trunks were all getting up to
several meters in circumference. And really tall. 300 feet some of
them.
All mossy and immense.
Then I met a statue that was having a
conversation with a man who had a parrot on his shoulder.
I don't know what was odder. The man
travelling around with a parrot sitting on his head. Or the fact that
the statue was talking to it?
The statue was of a large happy looking
lumberjack....and his cow.....or rather his Bull, the artist hadn't
left out any details.
Anyway the lumberjack was about six,
seven, eight meters tall. And he wanted to know if the parrot was
friendly. The man said that the parrot didn't really like his
girlfriend.
This made the lumberjack laugh. His
voice booming out over the car park.
It was at Klamath Trees of Mystery. A
tourist trap of sorts, that has a gondola up into the canopy of the
Red Woods. I've been in enough gondolas this year so didn't feel like
going up in another. But the talking statue intrigued me.
When I cycled away the giant man was
talking to some little girls who's names I believe were Sarah and
Courtney and he was admiring their dog that was sitting on his foot.
If I take the magic out of the thing
I'd say there was a guy sitting in a booth somewhere with cameras,
microphone and speakers rigged up. That would be a fun job....for the
first two hours...
Onwards. And down for a change. I must
have spent the morning climbing and afternoon coasting. On the whole
not a bad way to travel. It is preferable to coasting in the morning
and then climbing in the afternoon. Or simply going up and down and
up and down and up and down all freaking day!
I do that a lot.
Parie Creek Campground. To be honest I
should have spent a day or two there. Wandered around the Red Woods,
played with some Elk. There are sooooo many elk!
But I couldn't. Because I'd finished my
book.
Not having something to read drove me
nuts! I cycled. I grumbled. I scowled. I used up all the power on my
laptop reading downloaded novels. Then was annoyed because there was
no power point to recharge my electronic book.
'There's nothing for it.' I told
myself. 'I have to cycle until I find a book store!'
It took me two days.
The last night outside Mckinleyville
was the worst. I was camped in a sandpit. Or so it seemed. By a
muddy, black sandy beach. Nothing to read. Nothing to do. I wandered
along the beach in a vain attempt to distract myself form the reading
withdrawals. The beach was....well I'm sure it's mother loves it.
And the other California's appeared to
find it nice. But they haven't seen Australian beaches so I guess all
I can do is pity them.
In frustration I went to bed. At eight.
And stared at the ceiling.
Then a convoy of hippies turned up. And
had a party. Of course if I'd been feeling sociable I would have
climbed out of my tent and joined them.
I wasn't. Instead I eavesdropped on
them for hours.
They were all about my age, doing
similar stuff to what I'm doing. I couldn't help but think that
people my own age, doing stuff that I'm doing, all sound like idiots.
…..this concerned me somewhat.
Then they started playing the Pirate
game.
[sung to the tune of the 'ants go
marching'.]
“I put me hand upon her toe
yo ho, yo ho
I put me hand upon her toe
Yo Ho yo ho
I put me hand upon her toe
She said 'now pirate you're way too
low.
Get it in, get it out, quick muckin'
about
yo ho, yo ho, yo ho
DRINK!”
It was a drinking game that I found
fairly amusing. The verses got steadily more seedy as the game
progressed. I'd recite them for you but my Mum reads this....
Of course they all got to talking about
music festivals and concerts and bands I'd never heard of. I lay in
my tent and listened, but felt no real desire to join in. Eventually
I fell asleep to Pink Floyd informing me that he didn't need an
education.
Everyone was hung over the next day.
I set off to find a book.
Three towns, thirty miles, four book
shops and lost glove later, I finally exited Borders with two novels.
For those that care: Neil Gaiman's
Neverwhere. And Karen Miller's Riven Kingdom.
Happy Kym.
Then I high tailed it down the freeway
to Ferndale. Spent the night in the show grounds there. That camphost
was far better than the one at the unnamed County park of Fort Dick.
He opened the door of his caravan and I
engulfed by the smell of weed. I probably could have camped there for
free if I told him I wasn't actually real. But I paid my dues and
drifted off to my site feeling very chilled out indeed.
There I met another Tom. This Tom was
interesting. Ex army boy. Had been blown up in Iraq and retired
because bascialy he didn't have a spine any more. I mean that
literally. His humvee had driven over a land mine. Luckily it had
been buried too deep so the explosion didn't really do as much damage
as it could have. It did hurl the humvee straight up into the
air....again not the problem. The problem was the landing. Tom's spin
compressed on impact.
So now he has a steel rode where half
his vertebrae used to be.
He also has shrapnel from a
mortar..mine/bomb/grenade? Blew up a container next to him. He was
getting his lunch at the time.
All in all I don't think being a
solider looks like fun. That said he is the most travelled American I
know. Europe, Australia, South America, cycled across America twice.
Now he is building a new touring bike so he can ride the southern
tier. It has a lot of head stem because he can no longer bend.
I asked him if he thought they'd
achieved anything over there.
“We did, I think. People living in
the town that we were near were scared to go out. Do their groceries.
The area was called 'the Triangle of Death'.”
“So not melodramatic at all?” I
said.
“Al Qaeda was there all the time. But
then part of my unit got ambushed and killed and they never found
their bodies. Well the local people. They grew some balls because I
guess, they didn't want us to leave. So we drove into the town one
day and there was bodies laid out everywhere. Kids, women, men, old
people, young people. The people in the town had gone out, found the
people guys who'd killed our soldiers and killed them. And not just
them, but their entire families as well.”
He grinned, half laughing.
“And that was a good thing?” I
asked feeling slightly......something.
“Well it isn't called the Triangle of
Death any more. Al Qaeda doesn't want anything more to do with that
town.”
War eh.
I have no idea what to think of any of
that.
His bicycle looks pretty.
Today I rode on.
Kept cycling through more farms and
trees and hills.
Not entirely sure where I am right now.
But that's fairly normal.
Tomorrow is looking like a good day to
do nothing.
