DAY 23 - GOLDEN GATE

The weather here today in San Fran is... rather foggy!

We did not bother with the free hotel breakfast as it was so bad yesterday, instead setting off for the BART station again for our second day in downtown San Francisco.  We need to get a bus as well today which drops us off on the edge of the Golden Gate Park. From here, we grab a cheap breakfast of coffee and a pastry from a garage and set off to exploring the park. The park is very beautiful, though with lots of rotating sprinklers that threaten to shoot across the path and soak you at any minute! It turns out that to see inside most of the things in the park you have to pay individually, but we do get to see some nice park areas with fountains and plants, along with a 'temple of music', a kind of roman style stage for performances. We picked the Japanese Tea Garden as our one thing to visit, and it was a good choice! Filled with beautiful Japanese plants and decorations, we saw many rivers and prettily shaped trees...

... Koi carp...

... a very high pagoda...

... and fun stepping stones! It was a very interesting place to explore with lots of twists and turns and new pathways to discover. The golden gate park is very long and hence we only got to see about half of it as we needed to head to the bridge!

A little confusingly, the golden gate park is nowhere near the golden gate bridge. We knew it would be a long walk from one to the other, so we stopped at the 'bagel house' along the way for bagels with sun-dried tomato cream cheese and cucumber and pastries. We reached the edge of the park leading to the golden gate bridge already pretty tired from all the walking, and then realised the park was a little more of a forest than we were expecting and we didn't know how to get through!

Stumbling upon a map, we took what we hoped would be a path taking us to the bridge, although it was 2.7 miles long and labelled as not made yet! Despite our doubts and a little bit of walking along a road with no sidewalk, we did end up at the bridge, and with some great viewpoints along the way!

The fog had mostly lifted over the city by this point, and it had gotten nice and warm but a little fog remained over the bridge giving a cool spooky aura! Apparently fog is a regular thing at the bridge in summer due to the differing water temperatures of the pacific and the bay.

We headed to the start of the bridge, determined to walk the 4 mile journey across and back! Walking across, we got great views of San Fran behind us and the hills ahead on the other side.

Making it to the other side, we looked back celebratorily on the bridge and city behind us!

Although by this point we had pretty achy feet and considered trying to hitchhike back across, we decided to toughen up and do the return walk. It didn't seem so bad in the end luckily and we returned to the city feeling victorious! From here, we grabbed the bus and BART back to the hotel area where we topped the car up with petrol to return in the morning, tidied and packed, grabbed some Thai food for dinner and are, as we speak, getting ready for a short few hours sleep before we wake up at 3.30am to go catch our first flight! 

DAY 22 - JANE & JESS ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ

We begin the morning with a pretty lousy breakfast at the Days Inn.  Then we drive to the local BART Station to get the train to downtown San Francisco.  We get off at 16th & Mission and our first sight is of lots of homeless people.  We make a hasty retreat from this area to The Castro.  This is the gay area of town where Harvey Milk used to live.  We see the Castro Theatre and get some breakfast from a nearby cafe.  We then got a street car to Union Square and walked to China Town and to the City Lights Book Shop where Jessica bought a copy of Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouak.

We carried on our walk up some very steep San Francisco hills to The Coit Tower (which has great murals inside) and then back down some very steep steps to the Piers.  There are a load of sea lions at pier 39 that apparently arrived after the earth quake of 1989.  Initially the authorities wanted to get rid of them because boats used to dock at this pier but in the end they just let the sea lions stay and the boats had to leave.

 

We then moved on to Fishermans Wharf for lunch at Cioppinos.  Owned by an Italian Family this restaurant is one of the best on Fishermans Wharf.  Jessica had a pasta dish and I had the local crab and shrimp salad with delicious sour dough bread.

We carry on our walking tour of the eastern side of San Francisco to the park area surrounding Fort Mason.  There is a good view of the Golden Gate Bridge from here.  We spend some time resting in the park after our long walk.

By 5pm it is time for our walk back to Pier 33 for our Alcatraz Cruise.  We board the boat at 6.30pm for our night time tour.  We manage to get the top deck of the boat but it is pretty crowded so cannot get the best seats.  It is also getting very cold and windy!



As a special night-tour-treat, the boat circles the island before docking for some good views and photo opportunities of both the island and the cities around it on shore. Arriving back on the solid ground of the rock, we are split into groups for a guided tour up to the cell house. Along the way, we learn about the islands past as a military fort, plus numerous repetitive health and safety rules!

Entering the cell block via the main doors which prisoners would have used, we were provided with the best audio guides I have ever had. As we followed a path around the block, we listened to old guards and prisoners from the Alcatraz jail days telling tales of life in the prison, and the numerous escape attempts from it! It was really cool being here as night fell since the prison took on a dark and spooky atmosphere, especially as it was not that crowded.



We saw the classic 3 storey high cells, the dining room, the warden's room, the office and solitary confinement amongst others. We even got to go inside a solitary cell which was very creepy! There were also great views of the city at night from an outside area we visited. As a special treat for night time tour-ers, we got to visit the hospital wing which is normally closed for visitors. Like something out of a horror movie, we walked down corridors of cracked paint into the old operating room with foreboding metal operating table in the middle lit by a single lantern. Scary!  One of the rangers tells us the story of an inmate who escaped in 1962.  He managed to cut through some window bars in the store room where he works and escapes over the roof of the prison.  When he gets to the sea, he has 30 odd pairs of rubber gloves which he inflates and puts inside a shirt to use as an inflatable device.  He makes it to The Golden Gate Bridge despite nearly being swept away by the cold currents of the water.  Unfortunately he crawls ashore right by a military base and immediately gets arrested and sent  right back to Alcatraz (suffering from severe hypothermia - he has to spend some time in the prison hospital).



After walking back down to the dock in the dark, getting to see the burned down officers rec room and old schoolhouse, we catch the last boat of the night back to shore. Only us and a hardy other 5 or 6 people braved the top deck this time! It was freezing and very windy, but we resolutely enjoyed the view!

Back in San Fran, we caught the BART (their metro system) back, got a Taco Bell drive through on the way back from the station and ate it in our hotel room like true white trash! It was pretty late, so we went to bed to be well rested for our final day...

DAY 21 - The Final Leg

It's the final drive! We awake in the beautiful Cayucos to our last journey of the trip: up to San Francisco.

After coffee/juice and a blueberry muffin from the 'Top Dog Cafe', plus some cookies for the road from a fab looking bakery, we head off on the 6 hour journey to San Fran. Along the way, we saw a distant Hearst Castle and then stopped at a vista supposedly good for seeing elephant seals. As soon as we pulled up the Car(l), we spied a seal in the ocean in front of us. Excited, we ran out to take pictures when a man said there would be a better view farther along. So after watching out first seal, we moved farther down the walkway where we discovered a few more seals playing in the ocean, very close to the shore. It was great to see them in the wild!

We then decided to follow the path a little further around, but only then did we truly discover the better view we had been told of, there was a whole beach of sunbathing seals!

The young males not yet old enough to head for Alaska, there had to be 100 seals just chilling in the sun, occasionally heading in for a swim or play fighting. We stood and watched them for ages, it was so exciting!

After we had had our fill of seal watching, we carried on up the pacific coast highway, past Big Sur for some unfortunately extortionately priced petrol but cool ocean-side views.

We stopped at a grocery store in Santa Cruz for lunch, having pumpkin soup out in the sunshine, and then more coastal driving. We passed Monterrey and Carmel, which is the town where Clint Eastwood lives and was previously Mayor! Unfortunately we did not see Mr Eastwood to tell him that we named our sat nav after him...

We stopped at one more beautiful beach along the way, and even though mum was being silly and refused to come onto the sand because it was windy, I had a great time paddling and watching the windsurfers!

We arrived in San Fran, or to be more specific San Bruno where we are staying close to the airport, for around 4pm. Checking in to our final hotel, we spent some time clearing out the car for it's return and planning our 2 days here in the city. After this, we headed down to the local supermarket to get treats to bring home, and headed to an amazing Japanese restaurant in San Bruno named Aji Ichi where we ate fabulous gyoza and beef teriyaki. 12 miles from San Francisco our milometer reaches the 5000 mile mark. More news from San Fran tomorrow!