Week 40 : Miranda to Pepperwood

Amy and I are walking again: walking north, walking along the Avenue of the Giants. Following the Eel River. Heading first for Eureka, then for Oregon, then Seattle, and then .... well let's not get ahead of ourselves.

We sat and looked at the map at the Myers Country Inn, a few miles north of Miranda. It's a smart place: wood verandas, floral prints, all that kind of stuff. All very North Californian. But Amy didn't seem impressed. "This place is No. 24 in the list of 101 things to do in Humboldt County", I told her. "God help the other 76", her look seemed to say.

We followed the road north skirting Humboldt Redwoods State Park. As you walk by this massive 52,000 acre park, you have to admire the American approach to going back to nature. The campgrounds are all carefully set out with well-kept paved roads for your SUV. There are showers and toilets, picnic tables, and even wi-fi networks for your computer. But, as Amy was quick to point out, despite all the promise of going back to nature and the days of the pioneers, dogs are not allowed in most places. It's because you might chase the Grizzly Bears and give them a fright I told her. She ignored me: she was too busy composing a letter of complaint to Governor Schwarzenegger. It wasn't all endless tree-scapes. Towards the end of the week was a bit of a high spot : the point at which the various forks of the Eel River join together. This is near a place called Duckett Bluff which is noted for .... well actually it's noted for very little other than its bluff. The following day we came to the settlement of Redcrest. Checking out the website to find the scale of the place I was intrigued to see an option which promised me "ten job vacancies in Redcrest, Ca". This sounded good, here was a town of some substance if it could offer ten job vacancies in these troubled economic times. Alas, I was wrong yet again. I should have been suspicious when I checked out the first on the list which was a vacancy for an Army Chaplain in Iraq!

Before the week came to an end we travelled through Engelwood, Holmes Flat, Shively and Pepperwood and there was hardly a wooden hut between them. "They love their names, these Americans", I commented to Amy. She sniffed at something and we walked on. Alone. With just the Eel River and the trees for company.

Week 38 : Dutchman's Flat To Richardson Grove

As Amy and I walked through the almost endless Redwood forests of Northern California, we reflected on the start of our journey. According to the log, this was 38 weeks ago, but in reality it had taken us over a year to get to this point (virtual travel can bend time in a way which would bring a gleam to Albert Einstein's eye). Towards the end of the first week, we had made it out of central Los Angeles to the coast at Santa Monica Pier where we picked up California State Highway, heading north. And for most of the time since, Highway 1 had been our constant companion. Together we had seen good times and bad times, we had seen cities and mountains, we had seen rocky bays and we had seen trees. Boy had we seen trees. But this was the last week we would walk hand in hand with this great highway for at Leggett, State Highway 1 came to an end.

The town of Leggett, California is not much of a place. It is small - even by the standard of Californian towns - and has only two claims to fame : it is the northern-most point of Highway 1 and it has a tree you can drive through. Leggett is also pretty rare these days in that it doesn't have a Wikipedia entry. Discovering this, Amy and I both felt sorry for it and decided to remedy matters by writing the entry ourselves. The bad news for Leggett is that Amy drew the short straw and is currently engaged in penning something suitable. If I were Leggett, I wouldn't hold my breath.

The tree you can drive through is known as the Chandelier Tree and the hole through its trunk was carved by some enterprising Leggett resident some seventy years ago in the sure and certain belief that a town with two tourist attractions was better than a town with just one. It is a remarkably popular attraction still. It always comes as a surprise that in the sophisticated 21st century, people will still drive miles and miles simply to drive through a tree. There again, it maybe was just that having arrived in the town of Leggett and having been to see where Highway 1 comes to an end before lunch, these people had nothing to do for the rest of the day. Amy and I sympathised with their plight and we walked through the tree in solidarity with them. If you haven't a day to spare you can always watch one of the numerous videos of people driving through the tree which are available on the You-Tube site.

Leaving Leggett and Highway 1 behind, Amy and I felt lost and alone. Amy - who can never be accused of being over-loyal to one person or one geographical feature - insisted that we should find a new friend to follow. She found us the Eel River. By the time we met up with it at Leggett, the Eel River (or to be more precise the South Fork Eel River) had been flowing north towards the Pacific for many a mile, minding its own business. It is a nice river, a pleasant river, a friendly river (there is even an organisation called "Friends of the Eel River") : we decided to follow it to the sea. Having read that the river is home to rainbow trout, Chinook salmon, and steelheads, I suspect that Amy was interested in more than the views.

And so the river led us northwards, towards the sea. It was in no great hurry and it would be several weeks before it lost itself in the big ocean. Until then we would follow this blue ribbon through the green trees.

A few miles north of the end of Highway 1, something else came to an end : Mendocino County. Crossing County Lines has become quite a "milestone", and Humboldt County, which we had just entered, was our 12th County so far. Whilst the County is reasonably large, the population is reasonably small and it has a rural, out-of-the-way feel about it. It claims more artists per capita than anywhere else in California. It also claims to have more trees than anywhere else. The latter claim certainly appears to be correct.

Our week ended in the tiny settlement of Richardson Grove. Richardson Grove - named after the 25th Governor of California, Friend WIlliam Richardson - may seem to have all the magnetic attractions of Leggett without the tree and the road junction, but it does have one thing of note, a State Park. The Richardson Grove State Park is a jolly affair with numerous campsites and even more trees. It is true that, by now, Amy and I were getting just a little tired of trees, but these were majestic things, "well worth cocking a leg at" as Amy so charmingly put it.

Week 36 : Fort Bragg to Westport

I'd like to see the Skunk before we leave", I said to Amy as we prepared to head north out of Fort Bragg, California. She looked slightly surprised, but nevertheless grateful. She was used to a hefty tug on the leash whenever she tried to investigate the local wildlife. She was used to being dragged past squirrels and hoisted over dormant door-mice. Now here was her guide, philosopher, feeder and owner actually suggesting they go in search of a local critter. She had never eaten skunk and she tried to imagine what it might taste like. Her train of thought was interrupted by a great hiss of escaping steam. Her train of thought was interrupted by a train of iron and steel.

The California Western Railroad (a.k.a. The Skunk Train), like almost everything on this part of the Californian coast, was a child of the booming nineteenth century logging industry. It was built in 1885 to move the massive redwood logs to the Mendocino Coast sawmills from the rugged back country. Steam passenger services were started in 1904 but discontinued in 1925. During the latter half of the twentieth century its decline matched the decline of the logging industry. Until the 1960s it was operated as a division of the Fort Bragg Logging Mill but was later taken over by the Arizona-based Kyle Railways. By the 1990s, the logging days were in the past and the main purpose of the 40 mile line was as a tourist attraction, In August 1996, a group comprising entirely of local Mendocino Coast investors took over the railway and it has been thriving ever since.

I explained all this to Amy who didn't seem particularly interested. Indeed, when a train steamed into the depot and caught her off her guard, she launched a vicious attack on it and we had to scurry away and go in search of a more gentle and serene location. We followed the signposts and headed for what has been described as one of the most unique beaches in the world - Glass Beach. The story of the beach is interesting, almost inspirational, and therefore I didn't need much prompting to explain it to my dog (which was fortunate because I didn't get much prompting). Beginning in 1949, the area around Glass Beach became a public dump for the town of Fort Bragg. People dumped all kinds of refuse straight into the ocean, including old cars, and their household garbage, which of course included lots of glass. By the early sixties, some attempts were made to control what was dumped, and dumping of any toxic items was banned. Finally in 1967, the North Coast Water Quality Board established a new dump away from the ocean. Now, some 40 years later, Mother Nature has reclaimed the beach. Years of pounding wave action have deposited tons of polished glass onto the beach. There were quite a few tourists around taking photographs of the shining glass pebbles and Amy and I joined in the game. You had to be a bit selective with your field of focus in order to avoid the bits of old car tyres which were also in the habit of being washed up. But the beach is a fine place and a monument to natural recycling. Amy did her bit for the recycling movement by appearing by my side with what looked like a bit of dead seal in her mouth. We hurried on.

Later that same day we waded across Pudding Creek on the seaward side of the recently rebuilt trestle bridge which carries the old Mackerricher State Park road over the estuary. Our old friend Highway 1 was a little to the east but I had decided to stick to the coast as far as possible this week. For the next few days we would be travelling the length of Mackerricher State Park which, Amy was pleased to note, was one of the few dog-friendly State Parks in California. As we walked over the rocky headlands and across the numerous sandy coves, Amy was free to wander - as long as she kept within the legally required limit of a six foot leash. If the truth be told, at one stage, as we approached Lake Cleone, her leash extended to about six and a half feet for a few minutes and we spent the rest of the afternoon hiding behind bushes and living in dread of Governor Schwarzenegger swooping down on us in an helicopter gunship. The northern part of the Park is given over to the less than appropriately named Ten Mile Beach and Ten Mile Dunes. In fact they are seven miles in length from end to end : their name comes from the Ten Mile River which can be found at their northern end. The name of the river comes from the fact that it is ten miles north of the Noyo River which - quite appropriately this time - is ten miles to the south. As usual I explained all this to Amy and, as usual, she preferred to sniff things.

We could have crossed the river and kept our feet and paws dry if we had tracked about half a mile inland and crossed over the bridge that carries Highway 1 north. But Amy knew better and decided to risk wading across what she assumed was a shallow little stream : the result was that we got soaked and when we dripped and squelched into the tiny settlement of Seaside Creek we were a sorry site. The weather was kind, however, and we lay on the white sandy beach until we were dry. The sea and the land, nature and mankind all seemed to be in harmony on this delightful bit of coastline. I lectured Amy about this as we walked north, making several very valid points about love and universal friendship, harmony and mutual dependence. As the lecture drew to a close we approached a marble memorial stone which had been set adjacent to the road a few miles out of Seaside Creek. It celebrated the life of one Randy Fry, an enthusiastic diver and fisherman who died a few hundred yards west of this spot in August 2004. He was eaten by a Great White Shark!


We kept to the main highway as we travelled north and were eventually delivered to the beauty and tranquility of the Pacific Star Winery. Wine barrels line the cliff tops, maturing casks of glorious wine are stored in sea caves within the sound of breaking surf. The tasting rooms are open almost every day of the year and you can sample up to ten different wines - all for free. There are even picnic tables available so you can drink your wine, enjoy a picnic and watch the whales swim by. This really is a little bit of paradise on the Pacific coast. Amy behaved herself and sat quietly and watched the sun set over the Pacific. I just sat quietly and got slowly pickled. If you are ever travelling through Northern California it is worth stopping off at the Winery. If you are not, if you are just driving to work on the A616 through Keighley, it is worth making a detour. We spent the night at the charming Howard Creek Ranch Inn, which was remarkable both for its old world charm and for the fact that dogs were welcome guests.

Our week came to an end in the little village of Westport. A hundred years ago when lumber was king it had a population of over 20,000, now it is home to little more than 230 souls. It's a pleasant enough spot, but - as I suggested to Amy - one could easily get bored with so little to occupy yourself with. However she had spotted a poster advertising the village's famed annual chicken barbeque. She was smitten. If paradise for me had been that glorious winery a few miles down the road, paradise to Amy was a chicken barbeque. As our week came to an end we were searching the lists in Real Estate offices looking for a property midway between village and winery.

Week 12 : Hearst Castle To Gorda

Dogs aren’t allowed on the tour of Hearst Castle. This is a little odd seeing that old WR (having paid my $24 dollar entrance fee I feel that a degree of familiarity is warranted) was fond of animals. During the 1930s, herds of giraffes, lions, elephants and zebras would wander around the grounds, and, as we saw the previous night, some of the zebras still remain. In many ways, William Randolph Hearst was the spiritual godfather to Michael Jackson. Nevertheless, in order to take the tour, I had to leave Amy behind which, given her temperament, is always a bit of a risk. I left her down by the Pacific Coast and she promised to just sit and watch the elephant seals and wait for my return.

Hearst Castle is well document in both the traditional and the digital media. If you want to get a flavour of the conducted tour, there is a honest little video taken by skcarterr available on YouTube. If you want to see some superb images of the Castle have a look at the photo gallery on the Hearst Castle website. If you want to know about WR then a good starting point is his entry in Wikipedia. However, you can get quite a good idea of the chap by looking at the Editorial Guidelines he circulated to all his 28 newspapers in 1933. Number 1 is “Make a paper for the nicest kind of people for the great middle class. Don’t print a lot of dull stuff that people are supposed to like and don’t”. Number 2 is even better : “Omit things that will offend nice people. Avoid coarseness and a low tone”.

For someone who was such a consummate showman and a first-class manipulator of twentieth century media, it is somehow appropriate that his lasting legacy is a fake castle and a razor-sharp movie. Hearst Castle looks stunning perched on the hills above the Pacific coast. But it is made of reinforced concrete to withstand the earthquakes and its treasures where shipped over from a bevy of European Stately Homes. The movie was, of course, Citizen Kane – the story of a megalomaniac newspaper publisher which is still rated by many people as the greatest film ever made. Whether it was the greatest movie ever made and whether it was a true portrayal of Hearst were questions rumbling around my mind as the tour bus brought me back down “the enchanted hill” to the visitors centre.

I found Amy (did she have a guilty look on her fine wheaten-blond face?) and we followed Highway 1 north, leaving Hearst Castle, San Simeon and the south central coast of California behind us. For the next two or three weeks we were leaving much of what, in California, constitutes civilisation behind. As far as I could see from the map, for the next eighty miles there would be no fast-food restaurants and no shopping malls. There would, however, be plenty of elephant seals.


I caught my first sight of these magnificent animals a few miles north of San Simeon at the Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Viewing Point. Truth be told, as soon as they saw Amy most of them made a dash for the open sea which made me somewhat suspicious of her activities whilst I was doing the Castle Tour. However, you can enjoy the full elephant seal experience – including the sound of them honking and barking at each other – on the Friends of the Elephant Seal website. For those captivated by these animals a visit to the National Geographic’s live Seal Cam is essential.

Just north of the seal colony is the Piedras Blancas Lighthouse, one of only three lighthouses built on the Californian coast. It was built to guide ships safely into San Simeon Bay which in the middle of the nineteenth century was a centre for the whaling industry. According to the wonderful Lighthouse Friends website, the whaling station was built “to surprise the huge creatures as they hugged the nearby shoreline during their annual migration”. It all sounds a bit beastly to me, but Amy casts a knowing look out to the open sea. I have a feeling that I know what she will be dreaming about tonight.

Over the next few days the road north takes us over the County Line. We leave behind San Luis Obispo County and enter Monterey County. Before I embarked on my virtual journey, I had little idea of the existence of counties in the United States. Like all half-decent pub quiz players, I could name most of the States and a sprinkling of State capitals. But the concept of a County (and American County that is) was foreign to me. But as I walked on I became more familiar with counties and county lines : they would act as useful yardsticks, handy reference points and emotional bookmarks. So Amy and I said farewell to SLO (as those who have walked its streets call it) and hello to Monterey, home to half a million people and one of the original counties of the State of California.

For the rest of the week we walked north along State Route 1 (Highway 1 to those who have walked its tarmac) which must be one of the most beautiful coastal roads in the world. It has been designated an “All-American Road” (one of only 27 in the USA). The designation means they have features that do not exist elsewhere in the United States and are scenic enough to be tourist destinations unto themselves.

By the end of week 12 we had reached Gorda (the official maps call it Gorda, the web-based spin-doctors call it Gorda Springs-by-the Sea). Whatever you call it, it is a couple of houses a shop and a café. According to the Beach California website, Gorda’s Whale Watcher Cafe is “a world renowned establishment offering a 60 year tradition of hospitality and gourmet dining in a romantic, nautical-like setting”. World-famous or not, Amy and I settled down at the end of the week, looking out to sea, watching out for whales swimming by.

Week 11 : Cayucos To Hearst Castle, San Simeon

Leaving the pier at Cayucos behind, Amy and I followed the Cabrillo Highway heading North-West. At times the sea was our companion, at times it melted away behind low hills and rocky outcrops. For a couple of days we enjoyed the comparative solitude of this part of Central California. There was always plenty of traffic on the highway, but if you left that behind and followed one of the many paths which ran parallel to the main road you were alone with your dog and your thoughts and a hundred screeching sea birds. One felt at harmony with nature and therefore it was quite appropriate that after two days we entered the “town” of Harmony.

Harmony, California has a population of just 18 and consists of no more than one short street and a few tin-roofed houses. But with at least four websites, it must have one of the highest ratios of websites to population of anywhere in the world. Founded in the mid-nineteenth century as a creamery, during its early years Harmony was anything but harmonious. Rivalries and feuding amongst dairy farmers led to at least one shooting after which a truce was called and a co-operative dairy was established in the town. During its heyday it was a thriving community with a store, livery stable, post office and schoolhouse. After the dairy was moved to San Luis Obispo in the 1950s the town went into decline and was largely abandoned for many years. Restoration began in the 1970s and today Harmony is a small artist and artisan community. According to one of its websites, the activities available in Harmony are “viewing art, drinking wine and shopping”. Recently, the glass artist, Carl Radke, closed his Pheonix Studio in the town so that just leaves drinking wine and shopping. As Amy and I are both reticent shoppers at the best of times, we headed for Harmony Cellars Winery. We settled down under the Gazebo, soaking up the warm Californian sun with a glass of their 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon (OK in Amy’s case it was a small saucer). She is developing a good nose for wine and confidently told me that there were intense cherry aromas with hints of mild spices, and a soft toastiness of a finish which came from French oak aging. You have to give her credit, she is quite some dog.

Leaving Harmony behind we continued on towards the town of Cambria which, although still being a relatively small place, is still some 35 times bigger than Harmony. The town is divided into three quarters (if you will excuse the contradiction) : the East Village which is composed of “beautiful old Victorian houses” (they fight a war of independence only to name their styles after our bloody monarchs); the West Village which is composed of “charming old Victorian houses”; and Moonstone Beach and Drive which one assumes is neither beautiful nor charming. Actually, that is unfair as it seems a lovely place. Rather than the more common white sandy beaches of southern California, Moonstone Beach is made up of small pebbles, polished smooth by the sea. It takes its name from the moonstone, a form of orthoclase feldspar, which is usually polished as a cabochon (whatever that is), and is often carved with a moon face. If you are lucky these can be found on the beach, washed up and polished by the Pacific waves.

According to the splendidly-named Wyrdology website, the Romans believed that moonstones were formed from drops of moonlight. As such they are attributed with those properties traditionally associated with the moon: romance, femininity, intuition, dreams, the emotions, etc. Many cultures believe the moonstone to be a calming, healing stone and it has sometimes been said to allow a glimpse of the future. Amy was keen to get in touch with her feminine side and I was keen to know what the weather would be like next week (we had a long walk planned) so we spent some time searching the beach for moonstones. We didn’t find any so we went and had a burger and fries instead.

One of the best features of this bit of the coast is the Moonstone Beach Boardwalk. Boardwalks are very much an American thing and I was keen to experience one. I can do no better than to quote from Monica Tarzier of the Santa Lucia Chapter of the Sierra Club who describes her walk along the Boardwalk.

“The morning is quiet, cool, damp. We cross Moonstone Beach Drive to access the boardwalk, which skirts the beach for a civilized walk of approximately three quarters of a mile one way. Dogs are allowed on leash. Our walk is lined with baccharis, mustard in flower, sage, oxalis, and cultivars such as dusty miller and rock rose. Monterey cypress creates a lush canopy over the boardwalk in several places”.

Thank you Monica, I couldn’t have described it better myself!

By the end of the week we arrive in San Simeon. Whilst much of this walk is something of an aimless wander, I have to admit I had been purposely heading for San Simeon for a good few weeks. For one thing, it marks the exact midway point between Los Angeles and San Francisco. For another it marks the location of what must be one of the strangest places in the United States. In the early evening, Amy and I rest by the main coastal road watching the zebras grazing in the field (yes, zebras) and looking up towards the wonders of Hearst Castle. But our exploration of this incredible building must wait until Week 12.