Wed 28 – Thu 29 Aug 2019
Almost as soon as we entered coastal California from the north, we began passing through extensive, protected redwood forest. This part of California was not the hot, parched, dusty, yellow-brown landscape of the collective consciousness, continuously slapped with surfing waves pounding in from the ocean under a relentless sun. Instead, it was lush and green, cloudy and cool, with a wide lump of fog sitting just out to sea and rolling in overnight to give a morning dampness to every surface after a chilly night, before burning off to reveal grey or blue skies and temperatures barely reaching the mid-20s Celsius.
We detoured off the main Highway 101 to drive 10 miles down the Newton B Drury Scenic Parkway in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, and pulled over to have a snack and walk a short interpretive trail. However, the only other visitor there, a lady on duty for the National Forest Service, came over for a chat and said there were much better redwood trails to explore about 4-5 miles further south before rejoining Highway 101.
[Use arrows or swipe to scroll photos.] Huge, old Californian coastal redwoods come in all sizes and shapes, including hollow, living trees. The redwood bark has a high water content and is soft.
[Use arrows or swipe to scroll photos.] Pretty trails and an interesting caterpillar leading up to the redwood groves.
We took the lady's advice, drove slightly further and stopped to enjoy short walking trails out to Corkscrew Tree and Big Tree, then rejoined the main Highway 101 south, passed over Little Lost Man Creek (who was this little, lost man?), and headed into the meadows along Davison Road, just south of the visitor centre. Here, we had close-up views of a herd of wild elk – large, black-necked Roosevelt elk – the heavily-antlered male making himself pretty by spiking his antlers with long grass strands, before encouraging his group of females and a couple of youngsters to move along.
We were in a car with the windows rolled down no more than 3 inches. Yet both girls seemed so nervous at our proximity to these large, wholly vegetarian animals that it seems we will have to re-think our future family travel possibilities to southern Africa, taking in some lion and leopard safaris from roofless, sideless jeeps (as Dave and I did in Zambia, Namibia and Botswana) or, indeed, on foot (a Zambian speciality).
We took a bridge over Skunk Cabbage Creek – choosing not to get out for an investigative sniff! – and headed for the Lady Bird Johnson Grove trail in Redwood National Park. After joyously using the recycling bins in the trailhead car park to deposit the recyclables that we’d been carrying around Oregon for two weeks, we borrowed a self-guided walking tour leaflet from the returnable leaflet holder and enjoyed the serene majesty of the redwood forest, watched by a lone raven.
Redwoods have thick, tannin-impregnated bark with deep, vertical grooves and a high water content that makes the bark soft to the touch (an arboretum near our home calls their particular specimen the ‘teddy bear tree’ when the local primary schools visit). These bark features help the redwoods to survive both forest fires and disease, often with the less resilient heartwood burning or decaying away to leave interestingly shaped, huge, hollow, living trees, hundreds of years old, that you can easily walk inside, and all the other tree types wiped out so that you are left with just a stand of redwoods, the tallest trees in the world.
It was awe-inspiring to think how long these redwoods had stood there through thick and thin, and the history that would have taken place below their branches – a sentiment which I summed up in pure poetry when I likened their physical presence to a series of upright, nearly-finished, Andrex toilet rolls. (Soft, strong and very long – as in, tall and long-lived.)
May was inspired to write the beginnings of a poem after her visit, starting, “As I looked up at the redwood tree, I was thoroughly awed.” If she were already a teenager, it’d probably have been, “As I looked up at the redwood tree, I was thoroughly bored.”
We continued south past an interesting coastline of rocky islets and down through one after another in a long necklace of stunning state parks, arriving for the night at Abalone campground in Patrick’s Point State Park, as recommended by the Forest Service lady we’d met earlier.
It was expensive at US$35 per night when we’d been used to prices nearer US$10 in Oregon – the only visible extras being flush toilets, handwashing sinks, drinking water taps and coin-operated showers, along with bear-resistant garbage bins and an elevated wooden cupboard on each pitch for storing food out of reach of animals. But it still had nowhere to wash up and the showers seemed expensive at what appeared to be US$1 for just 2-3 minutes of hot water. We later found out that a night’s campground fee in California also covers you for next day use of any Californian state park, although we wouldn’t benefit as we would need to press on.
[Use arrows or swipe to scroll photos.] Seals at Patrick’s Point State Park, in the ocean behind our tent.
Still, our pitch was lovely, with our own parking area joined to our tent/firepit/table area by a little shrub corridor and then, via another little shrub corridor, to the Rim Trail that passes along the coastal bluffs. From our tent, we could hear the gush and drag of the ocean and the barking of sea lions.
After putting up the tent and cooking and eating a quick evening meal, we walked a short way north along the Rim Trail to Rocky Point. We think the sea lions must have been in the other direction (south), but enjoyed watching seals coming to shore on the rocky islets for the night, many seeking babies they’d parked onshore for the day. The tide was coming in and one adult seal had chosen such a low rock for bedtime that it had to lift its head and tail every seventh wave to avoid being doused.
On land, the campground was bear, cougar and elk territory, although our sightings were of blue jays, a captivating, continuous stream of winged swarmer termites emerging from a hollow, subterranean tree root and a large, yellow ‘banana slug’ on the nearby water tap.
The girls found the slug fascinating, if a bit disgusting, so I reminded them of when they were maybe 3 and 4 years old, and spent ages making little houses for the slugs in our garden. The slug houses became ever more complicated, culminating in a little twig house with a floor, four walls, a waterproof roof to stop the slugs getting wet if it rained and a sun patio for them to relax on during the day.
They enjoyed this childhood story so much that I recalled another for their enjoyment: the time they’d been on a family walk and collected handfuls of dandelion clocks (the seed heads of a deep-rooted, rampant weed). We’d got home and I left them to play in the garden whilst I prepared tea. When I called them in to eat, they proudly announced that they had just finished planting all the seed heads in my flowerpots so that I would have some pretty flowers.
Next morning, we were on our last few bits and pieces for breakfast. Our cheddar cheese had been in the hot boot of our car for three days in a thin ‘coolbag’ without freezer packs or ice, and had become warm and slimy, not at all appetising. In fact, fit only for the bin. So, I cleavered it as best I could with a blunt camping knife, popped it between two slices of bread and toasted the whole lot over our miniature stove. My reckoning is that toasted cheese is always slimy, so you don’t notice the difference.
Last night, Dave had a shower, despite the expense, but merely achieved a stream of water well below lukewarm, and even that with some hassle. This morning, I thought about getting a shower for nearly two seconds, but decided against. That was fine though: we all know the saying, “It’s the thought that counts.” Indeed, I had thought my way through many a shower on this wilderness trip.
We took down the tent, packed our things and took a last look out at Rocky Point to see if there was any seal action. There was: at least 18 were lounging around. We then drove across to the other side of the campground for a look at Sumêg (‘Forever’) village on the way out.
[Use arrows or swipe to scroll photos.] Typical family home in Sumêg village.
This 1990 reproduction of a traditional Yurok village was hand-cut and built in the authentic way using split redwood boards tied with hazel bindings, board roofs, and distinctive family homes with a crawl-through, circular entrance doorway, a ground-level internal ‘gallery’ and a small, dirt-floored, sunken central area containing a firepit and reached by a short downward ‘staircase’ of notched solid wood.
There was also an open-sided ‘dance pit’ with a wooden roof and rustic bench seating on all four sides, and a ‘sweat pit’ (sauna) dug mostly into the ground and reached by crawling in through one of the two small entrance holes. The village is used by Native Americans for ceremonial purposes and is open to visitors. On our visit, it was deserted.
Late morning, we set off to continue our journey south. We still had 300 miles to travel on slow, scenic roads before reaching San Francisco the next day, and wanted to make sure we allowed time for stops at some of the many points of interest.