Finished!

I crossed the Mexican border into Tijuana today so that's it - I've
cycled from Canada to Mexico, and can now hang up my dusty cycling
shoes for a few days and relax on the beach in San Diego. I'm staying
here until I fly back to the UK on Tuesday.

I checked into my hostel yesterday so only had 25 miles to ride today,
but most of the route was through very busy city streets and the
traffic was stop/start the whole time so it was slow going.

It was quite surreal finally arriving at my final destination after
pedalling for so long. I was through to the Mexican side in no time,
didn't have to show my passport - just wheeled my bike through a
revolving gate and I was there. I had a beer and as usual people came
up to talk to me and ask questions about my bike and where I'd
started. It's a bit like being a minor celebrity!

Getting back to the US wasn't quite so easy. I had to queue for 2
hours, luckily I met someone in the queue who drove me and my bike
back to the hostel otherwise I would have had to cycle back in the dark.

So now I feel tired from the ride, slightly hungover from a night out
with people from the hostel last night, but really happy that I made it.

I'll put a few more photos from the final leg of the ride up tomorrow.

Sent from my iPod

I survived LA

The ride wasn't as bad as everyone made out, though there was one
crazy section where the pacific highway went by the port. I was
reminded of Ridley Scott's vision of LA in Blade Runner, heavy
industry as far as the eye could see. Lots of huge trucks zooming past
and no shoulder to cycle on, nice!

I actually ride out of LA tomorrow, but have done the hard bit now.

Sent from my iPod

LA tomorrow

I'm in Malibu at the moment, have splashed out on a more expensive
campsite (well it's an RV site with a few spaces for tents) so have
wifi and a hot tub.

Tomorrow I'm going to be cycling to Huntington beach in LA. According
to both the guidebooks I have and every cyclist I meet LA is the most
stressful place to cycle through in the known universe. One thing I've
learnt this trip is people do tend to exaggerate dangers/difficulty of
hills/quality of fish tacos from out of the way delis so we shall see.
Probably famous last words!

I'm likely to be staying in a motel tomorrow night so should be able
to post an update.

Sent from my iPod

Camping with the Hollywood A list

The place I was camping last night was called El Capitan State Beach.
Across the road is a resort called El Capitan Canyon which does
boutique camping with yurts that cost hundreds of dollars to hire for
the weeked. One of the other bikers on my site went to the grocery
store there, there was an guy with beard, hat and sunglasses who was
talking talking quietly and attracting attention to himself as he was
trying to stay incognito. Turned out it was Joaquin Phoenix. Lots of
Hollywood types go there apparently. Thing is I'm sure we bikers had a
better view as our site was right on the edge of a cliff overlooking
the sea - and it only cost us $5 a night!

I also found out that the fire I rode past a few days ago closed the
road a day later so I'm lucky I made it though in time. You can get
through another way but it's quite hilly.

Sent from my iPod

And now the end is near

Yep, I've almost finished! I'm in Santa Barbara having a day off, then
I just have 5 more cycling days to go. On Sunday i'll be in Malibu, on
Monday I'll be in the centre of LA then on Wednesday I'll get to the
Mexican border.

I've done all the major hill climbing now. I thought yesterday would
be an easy ride with only one high, but gentle hill. It's quite hot
during the day now though so I was completely knackered after the
first hour of riding. And only days before I'd been cruising over
much bigger hills in the appropriately named Big Sur - that was
definitely one of the highlights of the ride.

As I was riding through Big Sur I saw a couple of helicoptors in the
distance. When I got closer I saw they had huge buckets hanging
underneath which they were dipping into the sea and then flying over
to a fire that was just over the hill from me. I thought I'd come to a
foggy bit of the coast but it was actually smoke from the fire.
Luckily the road was still open, as was my campground.

Have seen lots of wildlife over the past few days, there was an
elephant seal colony that have taken over a whole beach, there must
have been hundreds. I have some video of them to put up when i get to
a computer. From my campground I can see dolphins in the bay. I
thought about joining them for a swim but the water is seriously cold.

I still need to find a place to stay in LA, there's a hostel that all
the bikers normally stay at in Huntington beach but it might have
closed as their phone number is disconnected. Looking round for
alternatives makes me realise that all I know about LA is through
listening to hip hop, anyone fancy a night in a hostel in Compton? Me
neither!

So I'm going to confirm the day I'll be flying back on Sunday. I'm
hoping to get a flight on Saturday 1st Nov, but if there's no
availability I know I can get one on Tuesday 4th (meaning I'll be back
on the 5th). And my ride won't quite be over until I get back to the
UK as apparently it's not too hard to cycle from Heathrow to central
London ...

Big Sur

Have just arrived in the famous Big Sur and am having a coffee and
contemplating the hilly 30 miles I still have to cycle today. It's a
smaller place than I expected, apparently its population is only 1000.

It's nice not to worry about the weather any more. It just doesn't
seem to rain around here at all, the worst it gets is a little foggy.
Mornings and evenings are chillier than I expected though. No fires
are allowed in the campgrounds around here, which is fair enough
considering the amount of damage fire does to this part of the coast.

The campground I wanted to go to this evening - Pfieffer Big Sur - is
shut because of fire damage, so I'm pushing on to Kirk Creek campground.

Last night I stayed in Veterans Park which is basically a campground
in the middle of Monterey. There were signs up warning of 'urban
raccoons' who have no fear of humans. Sure enough I was woken at 2am
by the sound of one of my panniers being dragged out of my tent porch
by one of the little buggers! Normally they don't touch your stuff if
it's that close to where you are sleeping. Turned out I had left some
trail mix in there so it was after that.

Santa Cruz'ing

So I've managed to get a huge 80 miles out of San Francisco, time for
another day off I reckon :) I cycled through town on my way to the New
Brighton Campground yetsterday evening and really liked the look of it
so I've decided to have a look around.

As I was cycling through town this guy on a bike asked me if I needed
directions. I told him where I was going, he showed me a shortcut and
then offered to give me a driving tour of the area. I'm meeting him in
a minute.

I bought an iPod touch when I was in San Francisco, partly because I
was missing music (I now have Brady's collection!) but also to make it
easier to get Internet access. Everywhere has wifi but nowhere has
computers so it was getting really frustrating.

Sent from my iPod

More photos added + some other blogs to read

Some more photos for your delectation, and some blogs by people I've stayed with/met:

Greg in Vancouver - http://lunchatthevillage.blogspot.com/

Doug (I'm in a few of his photos) - http://www.rompingground.com/

Fernando (have to use Google translate as unless you speak Spanish) - http://www.ciclocleto.blogspot.com/

Back on the road tomorrow

I've been in San Franciso since Saturday, it's been good to have a decent amount of time off the bike and see a lot of this city. It's also been good to see Brady (it had been 10 years!), and meet his wife Kate.

On Satuday we went to a night that was part of the Litquake literary festival and saw various writers doing readings while drinking (they were doing the reading, we were doing the drinking).

I've also been to check out the famous Haight Ashbury district, which turned out to be a bit like Camden but did have some good record shops, and had a look round the Mission district which is the Hispanic area of the city.

So I'm off again tomorrow, it will be a short ride to my next destination - Half Moon Bay - which is supposed to be beautiful. I think I've got about 10 days riding until I reach the Mexican border. I was thinking about heading into Mexico for a few days as I've been making good time, but there isn't anywhere good to go in that kind of timeframe. The famously dodgy Tijuana is the town just across the border, which isn't a great option. If you have more time you can cycle down Baja California but you have to go a bit of a way before it's starts getting nice.

In San Fran + added photos

A really quick post to say I've arrived in San Francisco and am at Brady & Kate's place. It was pretty cool arriving in the city via the Golden Gate bridge, lots of groups of cyclists on ultralight expensive road bikes were out on their Saturday morning ride and I got lots of rounds of applause and cheers when they saw how much stuff I was hauling up the hills!

About to go out with Brady on a ride round the city. I've started uploading a few photos to Picasa and have added a slideshow gadget to the blog. There are only about 5 photos there at the moment, I'll upload more tomorrow.

Hippyville USA

Crossing over the state line into California everything seems a bit different. There was actually border control coming in from Oregon which suprised me. There are all kinds of things you're not supposed to carry between states, including fruit and veg so I thought I was going to get frisked for contraband bananas. We (I was cycling with Will and Douglas at this point) got waved down and the border guard told us some of his own cycling stories, gave us some keychain LED lights and sent us on our way which was quite nice.

The further we get into California the more hippyish the towns seem - lots of organic food places and hemp shops all over the place. The towns are also bigger (a lot of the places I passed through in Oregon had a population of about 300!). The campground we stayed at a couple of nights ago had a grocery shop outside that had a club night going on with a DJ (playing 100% Dynamite type music) and a ska band, this place was in the middle of nowhere! The shop owner had set up an agricultural dam full of water in his back garden so people could lie on it and watch shooting stars - it's like a huge water bed big enough for 10 people. The water was warm as it had been a sunny day, it was really quite relaxing to lie there (with the group I'm cycling with and various locals) and have a beer. I saw a shooting star too.

I have tonnes of good photos at this point - I'm going to put them online when I get to Brady's place in San Francisco which should be on Saturday.

I is halfway!

I'm staying on a campground just outside Eureka, 900 miles into my trip and I reckon that's about halfway which is a bit of a milestone. It's also easily the equivalent of cycling Lands End to John O'Groats.

The weather has cleared up now which is a relief. There was no rain yesterday, and it's supposed to be sunny today. Last night I stayed on a campground in the redwood forest - it was called Elk Prairie I think. I didn't see no elk, though Douglas did, when I met up with him at the end of the day he had photos of a whole herd (is that the right collective noun?).

I haven't see that many animals so far actually, living ones anyway. Have seen plenty of roadkill, don't worry I haven't succumbed to the temptation yet. I'm sure a raccoon I saw yesterday was really fresh though, still steaming.

Have been cycling a bit with a guy called Wolfgang who is originally from Germany , but has lived in Vermont for a while. He has just cycled from Vermont to Vancouver via Alaska, he is now cycling down the Pacific coast like me, then he is going to go into Mexico - down through Baja California then over to the mainland. I'm not sure how old he is but he's retired with 3 grandchildren! He was telling me one year he traced the route of the tour de france - keeping 3 days ahead of the riders the whole time. Quite an impressive guy.

So I'm heading back into the redwoods again today, I'll be cycling some of the avenue of the giants today and camping in the redwoods again tonight.

A quick post to say

I'm soaked! It really bucketed down last night and my tent ended up in a small pond. Felt like I was back at Bestival.

Day off today in Brookings so haven't quite made it to California (5 miles to go). Will get there tomorrow and start encountering some serious hills as I go through the redwoods (one hill is 7 miles long and climbs to 1200ft).