Day 11 - San Francisco - Some peace and tranquility

After the somewhat stressful nature of the past couple of days, I was really looking forward to getting away from it all today with my visit to the Muir Woods, an area with Californian Coastal Redwood trees, away from the City. I was also pleasantly surprised that I had booked an 11am tour, with a pick-up, which meant I had a nice lie-in and no stress of finding the meeti

ng point. Well done me.

The tour had an optional drop off on the way back in a place called Sausalito where you can wander round before getting the ferry back with views of the Golden Gate bridge and then make your own way back. There were by now new staff on reception, and I asked them for advice about getting back, as well as other questions, again the lady I asked wasn’t particularly friendly (although no where near as bad as the man who greeted me when I arrived at the hostel) and very lacking in local knowledge. For a hostel, I thought this was pretty appalling. Thankfully her colleague jumped in – a really bubbly lady – who knew exactly what she was talking about. I’m glad that not all San Franciscans have a negative energy.

As it happens, when the coach arrived for my tour, I was met by Al, who informed the tour group that his name was exactly as it sounded. Haha. I sat at the front and chatted to him whilst he was doing the pick-ups and we had a laugh about not learning to drive in San Francisco. I was impressed with how he managed to drive a 40-seater coach around the city!

Once everyone had been picked up he started providing tour commentary about the San Francisco as well as driving, which was particularly impressive, but also informative and amusing. It was nice to have someone making us laugh, although he went to great lengths to point out that San Francisco was awaiting a major earthquake any minute as they occur every 95-100 years and the last major once was in 1906 (although they had a smaller one in 1989) “you do the math, we are long overdoo. San Franciscans know it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when”. I have started to notice, when wandering round San Francisco by the bay area, that there are signs about what to do if there is an earthquake. There are, what I assume are sirens, and notices telling people to go to higher ground – I guess in preparation for tsunamis. 

Muir Woods are located about an hour outside of San Francisco and are home to the Californian Costal Redwood trees. These trees actually covered much of the Northern Hemisphere 150 million years ago, but only two species of redwood remain in the USA now, both in California and both with limited ranges. These are the coastal redwood and the giant sequoia. Coastal redwoods are the tallest living things on earth and the tallest tree reaches 379 feet in the Redwood National Park (different to the one I visited). In Muir Woods, the tallest was over 258 feet. 

Interestingly, fire is essential to sustaining the growth of redwoods as it destroys bacteria and fungi that kill the redwood seeds. Redwoods are able to survive forest fires due to their

bark, although if the fires are too hot then their bark can become damaged.

The woods became such a popular place to visit that the authorities had to start issuing permits to visit, as parking is limited and so people were parking further up the road, and with such narrow, winding roads to get there, it was unsafe with people walking along.

Other than the odd over-exuberant, Janice-from-Friends, American, the woods were incredibly peaceful and I was sorry when I had to leave and head back to the bus. I could easily have spent the afternoon there just meandering, lost in my own thoughts. It was beautiful.

We then headed back towards San Francisco, via Sausalito, which is a fishing town that has continued to remain as a community as opposed to welcoming in modern developers (who would definitely exploit its beautiful seafront views). It has a very Mediterranean feel to it, and I could easily have been in Italy or Greece.

It was then time to board the ferry to head back to San Francisco. I had hoped to get a decent photo of the bridge again, but it was a bit hazy. The views of the Golden Gate Bridge are variable and it is very common for it to be surrounded by sea mist and even fog so I’ve been really lucky with the photographs I’ve got.

I felt like an ice cream, and after purch

asing a significantly pricey single scoop, and totally not worth the price I paid for it, I checked in on the local WiFi only to see something come up which said Starbucks, Google. I knew Google’s Headquarters were nearby, so I thought it would be pretty cool to check out them. So I googled Google and set off to find them. Only I was disappointed, because the address on Google was incorrect. Oh dear. Google needs to update their search engine!