Thursday 3rd June – Marina Inn

San Francisco

We had our complimentary breakfast at the Marina Inn. Not a very good breakfast but at least it was something to eat, wouldn’t want Min to get grumpy!

The first item for the day after breakfast was that we had to move car from the street to a parking lot. Parking in San Fran seems to be a problem as there are many more cars than spaces; also many hotels don’t provide parking. Still $22 was not much extra when we considered that we got the rooms for $45 a night near the centre of San Francisco.

We had a very big day planned with a tour on the ducks and then hire bikes and ride across the golden gate bridge. First though we did a bit of looking around the Fisherman’s Wharf area. Min and I both found leather jackets that we wanted. They were at least half the price we would have paid in Australia. There were a lot of touristy shops selling crappy souvenirs, so we really didn’t see much else we wanted to buy. Fisherman’s Wharf seems to be the tourist area of San Francisco so I am sure that there are nicer parts of the city if you are only there for a couple of days this is the place to go to get tours and hire bikes etc.

The first part of our day long adventure was a ride on the Ducks with Captain Jeff and toured through north beach down town then around the stadium and the bay. The Ducks are amphibious vehicles… well trucks really first built for WWII and they can move on land and sea, though to be fair not very well on either. They’re big and unwieldy but they give you a great couple of hour’s tour of San Francisco. Captain Jeff was fun and a great tour guide and the best part was we got Quackers. Quackers are a bright yellow duck bill shaped noise maker… needless to say Min loved hers.

Once we were done with our whirlwind tour of some of the central suburbs of San Francisco we needed some sustenance, so we ate ice-cream at Ghirardelli’s where (According to our tour guide) cocoa powder was first made.

After our healthy lunch of a chocolate fudge Sunday for min and a Banana Split for me (Mine had fruit in it, Fruit is healthy right?) we ambled back down to the Fisherman’s Wharf area and hired bikes. We cycled along the water front then up some stupendous hills and across the golden gate bridge. The view of and from this bridge is spectacular to say the least

On the way back along the foreshore of the bay we saw a store called sports basement. Min and I both wandered around inside for over an hour. Min bought some running shoes and I bought myself another pair of Keen Sandals. This time though I got the Venice model. I have to say I had a very tough time fitting my Jacket, water bottle some gloves and a hat in my little bag once I bought the new sandals. Once we were finally on our way again out the back of the store we saw the canoes of San Francisco Outrigger Canoe Club. Everything was going well but we were starting to run a little late for returning the bikes.

We made it on time and returned the bikes before the shop closed. Next stop was to quickly go to Golden Gate Leather and buy the jackets we saw earlier in the day.

Then walked to north beach area and ate dinner at an Italian restaurant. The restaurant ended up being quite a walk and after the long day already we were not only tired but starving by the time we made it to Pellegrini’s. Pellegrini’s is an Italian restaurant that was pointed out to us by Captain Jeff on the Duck tour earlier in the day. It may have been due to comparison but at the time it certainly tasted like one of the best meals we’d ever eaten.

After an excellent dinner we started off home on foot again. As we were walking down Columbus St back towards Fisherman’s Wharf we passed Lombard St and our hotel was on the corner of Lombard and Octavia and for some reason I suggested to walk back to the hotel via the more direct route of Lombard St. The problem with the walk ‘down’ Lombard St is that it goes over Russian Hill before descending to the relative flat area around our hotel on Octavia St. Lombard St climbs 88m in the space of a couple of city blocks achieving a grade of 27% on a stretch that has to have switchbacks for the cars to be able to safely drive along it. Anyway we walked over Russian Hill along Lombard St the crookedest street in the world (Captain Jeff recons that Lombard is the second crookedest street in the world behind Wall St).

Great day we saw amazing things but we were very tired.

Wednesday 2nd of June – Fireplace Inn

Carmell by the Sea to San Francisco.

Breakfast at the inn (lewis liked the bagels) , really nice really clean and simple. Chatted to a dude at breakfast about Napa valley, packed up and headed to the Monterey aquarium. Got a little lost on the way there (just after Min states that “wow I know where we are and how good am I” we just spun around and then followed the signs, missed the parking lot then had issues with one way streets but finally sorted it out and got a car park. Walking out of the parking lot a lady asked if we were going to the aquarium as she had 2 tickets she could not use and could not get refunded, it appeared legitimate and she waited for Lewis to come back from the car (had forgotten to lock it) so we bought them off her (saved us $20 and she got $40 that she would not have got as could not get a refund so worked out all around).

In the Aquarium we went straight to the otters and only had to wait 10 minutes for feeding/training time, they are so cool they only had 3 on display the other 2 were out the back where they act as companion animals or surrogate parents to sick or injured wild otters. They were just rolling around and around in the water, washing faces, scratching bellies and just generally grooming until the gate opened and someone came in they were on high alert and trying to scam food. They got ice blocks to start (just like the ones in your freezer) and one little one snitched ¾ of the blocks and had a pile on its chest, they are so clever he was banging them on his chest but then would hold all the blocks on his chest and role in the water (to wash off the bits) and then bang it again. They are no longer allowed to have seafood with a shell in the display area as they were banging the food on the glass and scratched it so badly they had to replace it, they still get proper shelled food out the back.

They had a very cool giant kelp forest which was massive the tank must have been 25ft high 20 meters wide, sardines/anchovies were in a massive school and all the other fish were cruising very cool. We also saw really cool sea horses , weedy see horses. They also has some wave generator that went over a Perspex walkway cool. The rest was fairly normal with the highlights for us listed above, oh and in the ocean out the windows you could see wild otters hanging out.

Lunch at Bubba Gump shrimp (as in Forest Gump bubba gump shrimp), it was an experience, food was good great view of the wild otters. Made it out of Monterey safely and much easier than on the way in.

Stopped at Santa Cruise – lewis was hoping to see the bike shop but to no avail, ended up at the beach which was just weird… there were roller coasters all up and down the strip, cable cars and merry go rounds people on the beach but there was no one in the water. We did see some brown pelicans including one that was diving for fish.

Lew noticed a lighthouse on the drive so we stopped and had a good look it was Pelican point lighthouse, and unfortunately the mist rolled in again just as I was getting out of the car to take a photo, oh well at least we saw it :)

San Francisco – great driving by lew , we made it to the correct street on the first go, intersections were very funny Lewis basically would stop and then just hope and go it seemed to work quite well. Many more horns here. Our street is incredibly steep with a park in the middle of it then down the other side – through a chicane which we JUST fitted through the dodge charger is not the skinniest little beast out there. But managed to find a park about ½ a block away which was great. Room is not massive but has everything we need and is quite good $$ and has breakfast included (double bonus). We walked down to the fisherman’s wharf which was a nice walk but starting to get a little chilly, we had a bread bowl of clam chowder and ate it looking over the water, saw some crazy people swimming (with wetsuits) and 3 old long boats rowing – fairly cool then really started getting cold so walked back to the hotel, in the morning going to do a tour and hire some bikes.

Tuesday 1st of June - Raggard Point Inn

San Simeon to Carmell by the Sea.

Disappointingly the fog was thicker than ever in the morning so did not get to capitilise on the great views that were obviously around our accommodation. We saw another humming bird (they are so tiny) Lewis hunted it for a while with his camera but to no avail, so grabbed a coffee and some fuel (Lewis got one called the red eye – 3 shots of coffee then topped up with drip coffee and if needed you can add cream) then off to the Elephant seals again – they were a little more active with mock battles going on in the water AND we saw ground what we think are ground squirrels (California Ground Squirrel Otospermophilus beecheyi) they were cool, one tried to get into the car engine to warm up as it was COLD. I had jumper, jacket and beanie on (lucky Lewis bought 3 beanies).

The off to Hursts castle, next tour didn’t leave for 2 hours and would take over an hour so just went to the loo, bought some food (yoghurt) and headed off to big sur. Still foggy which was a little disappointing but still massively beautiful area huge mountains (well to us) that reach the sea in spectacular cliffs. Around 12 the sun came out and wow was it even more beautiful – great scenery on both sides of the road, we even saw a light house – though some of the photos are dodgy as they were taken in the car whilst moving through the window (no real place to stop) we did try and do a walk but the walks were damaged by fire and were closed. Saw some naughty birds (stellers jay) were stealing biscuits (unfortunately could not get a photo without a biscuit) they were cool but cheeky.

Stopped for lunch at Big Sur bakery and Restaurant which had an art? Shop attached with crazy African inspired art and didgeridoos made in Indonesia – needless to say we did not purchase anything from here. There were more naughty birds (Stellers Jays) at lunch diving and stealing crumbs they were quite bold, lunch was nice and the coffees great (surprising as in the middle of nowhere for a place to to have a barista was not expected). Then drove on – stopping regularly for photos until we got to carmel, drove past our accommodation and went to the beach – water was freezing (apparently – Lewis touched it but I did not) people were on the beach in hooded jackets, lumber jackets and all the surfers had full wet suits but there was one crazy man swimming in just swimmers.

Looked at doing 17 mile drive (costs $9.50 just to drive on a road to ogle rich people’ houses… not really our thing) but Point Lobos State Reserve was just a few miles around so we headed there paid our $10 and had an awesome time. It is only a small reserve but it had a lot of animals there. On the first trail we saw Deer, then we saw Cormorants not very exciting but you tend to spot a lot of them when you’re looking for Sea Otters. After many many Cormorants Lewis spotted what could have been a sea otter but it was a very long way off and even with my big lens it was hard to tell what it was exactly. We also saw the stick piles produced by the stick rat. It was really the pretty scenery that was the highlight on the first walk. The scenery on the second walk was not as nice but there was an absolute bonanza with animals. We saw SEA OTTERS, cutest things ever. We saw Harbour seals, Sea Lions, couple of cool birds including maybe a canary.

At 5 we decided to leave the reserve and check into the hotel.

The hotel was cute but what we really needed was dinner. We had planned to get some fish and chips and go down to the beach and eat. Lewis though was feeling tired and just wanted to eat and get back to the hotel to rest. Changing the plans all the time doesn’t sit well with me so Lewis had to pick the restaurant. We ended up eating at a very nice Italian place. Meals were lovely as was the Napa Valley Cab Sav that we had with dinner.

Soooo Mannnnny Sea Otter photos to sort through.

Monday 31st May 2010 – Main Street Santa Monica (LA)

Santa Monica to San Simeon

Started off this day with the aim of driving up to San Simeon. Min though had never seen and had heard of Venice Beach so we headed to the next suburb south and had a quick stroll along the promenade on Venice Beach. It consisted of an uninterrupted stream of tourists, homeless and some rather strange people. It was the homeless people who had stalls on the beach that were the most depressing.

One highlight though was the Gym that is situated on the beach, open to the air. The Gym was holding a bodybuilding competition. There were some very orange and strange people involved in that contest. It seems that the place to go if [your into bodybuilding and] want to be seem in Venice Beach is the gym on the beach. One ‘lady’ who was not in the competition but seemed to be famous was rather disconcerting as I had assumed she was a lady until she spoke. After ‘she spoke I thought ‘she’ was male, well until I sore the bikini that she was wearing and thought there is nowhere to hid your bits (if you have them) in that tiny bit of material.

After that we said goodbye to the smog and craziness of LA and headed north. We had no real plans to stop anwhere except our hotel for the night at Ragged Point north of San Simeon. First stop though was a small beach just north of Malibu for Coffee (from Starbucks where else you gonna get coffee when your in the US) and a snack of Strawberries. It was much better than The Beaches in LA and I recommend anyone heading to California to Surf that you head north of LA to at least Malibu to surf for health reasons. The water is BROWN in LA.

On the way to where we might stop for lunch we spotted a sign “Buelton the home of the split pea soup”. Sorely tempted as we where we decided to press on to at least Santa Barbara for lunch.

Next stop was Santa Barbara for lunch a it had been recommended but Mary-jo at my work and one of Min’s host families in South Carolina. After getting lost for about half an hour we found the main street and a park. Walking around a little we spotted Joe’s Café. We decided to eat there not just because Min was starving and refused to look for another café but also because it looked nice.

Back on the road next stop was San Simeon the home of Hursts Castle. Though I made the executive decision to stop at one of the many Vista Points along the way and looked at a colony of Elephant seals. I have to say I did this for my own benefit as much as Min’s as I have never seen Elephant seals in the wild before either. Min took a million photo’s. Well OK min only took about 50 photo’s of Elephant seals but still it seemed like a million.

Last thing of the day was stopping at the Ragged point hotel situated on a cliff over the pacific ocean. A beautiful spot and quite a nice hotel with a fantastic restaurant.

Day 1ish – Sunday 30 May 2010 -Main Street Santa Monica (LA)

Nothing opens until 11 on a Sunday (except the farmers market across the way – which despite having recycling bins etc in place still hand you food in a plastic bag…. Getting there but still some work required).

Found some astero turf apparently you get a rebate back from the government if you install astro turf… great! But was really cool as some real grass was pushing through – go nature!

Lewis ordered a pirate chai which turned out to be a GREEN spiced coffee… apparently tasted nice until he hit the green gritty bits at the bottom – funny. Nice lavender and kangaroo paws at the café.

Did some shopping at Patagonia and REI (adventure equipment stores) cool stuff but not really needed right now. Then checked out the beach from top of the cliff (overlooking the pier) Pollution was insane, could hardly see Marina Del Ray which was about 5km away. Planes would appear out of the smog towing signs, water looked brown lots of people at the beach one or two people in the water… not sure why water brown??? Cool plants on the cliff top (cool old twisty tree that looked like flossy) and statue of a saint.

Headed to whole foods which is a food shop – massive choice in lots of great things, eg huge range of fruit and veg, massive selection of bulk rice, grains, flour, nuts etc can buy wine (section included wine bar) out of all the cheese lewis managed to pick Sheeps cheese (because it was in a orange mould) roasting coffee in store (cool) sushi chefs, grill area with fresh meals prepared, full pizza oven, soups, salad bar INSANITY but cool. Car in carpark for compact car… was filled with a 4 wheel drive dodge ram… compact????? Only in America. Lewis doing a great job of navigating, he somehow knows his way around… crazy.

Haibach Germany

First stop on my travels was Frankfurt where Kathryn Graciously had agreed to pick me up at 6am in the morning. The flight to Germany had been a 10hr flight from Sydney to Bangkok then a 14hr flight to Frankfurt after a 4 hour stopover. So by the time I arrived in Germany I had been awake for about 48 hours with no more than a couple of ten minute kips on the plane. Arriving at 6 in the morning I decided that the best way to get over my Jet lag instantly would be to stay up until about 9 than night. It worked! 64 hour awake and then a good nights sleep and I was adjusted to the German time zone in one day.

The week in Haibach passed with much needed rest and reading which I hadn't done in ages. Also lots of discussion with Kathryn ranging from women's right to choose to the effects of high doses of coffee, this later topic actually involve experimentation.

I finally got to meet Kal who is a lovely guy and told me many a story from his hospital giving me new insights and horrors from the world of hospitals. Mum being a pharmacist has already introduced me to the medieval torture chamber that is the Hospital but Kal being a doctor and surgeon just had those extra few details that really top off a good story.

One of the major highlights of the trip to See Kathryn was the trip we took to Nuremberg. I had heard the term the Nuremberg Rallies before but I didn't link them to the name that Kal suggested as a little trip. First off the Congress Hall that the Nazi Party built is huge. Huge really doesn't do it justice, it's Colossal. It was never finished and the most of the plans for the Nazi Party Rally grounds were never even started. They have turned the Congress Hall into the Documentation Centre which is basically a museum detailing the rise in power of the Nazi Party and the ways in which they dismantled and rebuilt Germany's systems of government to suit their own ends. It also details many of the social systems the Nazi Party put in place to get the German people to follow them. I cried a few times on the tour but one of the most startling thing from it is the understanding of how the people of Germany were manipulated. Kal and Kathryn both were startled to realise they would have been Nazi's. Kal would have joined whichever group would have given him the most badges. I figured that it would depend on how old I was when it all started. If I was in my 30's or older I would have been killed by the Nazi's well before the war even started. If I was in my 20's or younger I would have ended up joining up and either would have been in the SS or in some secret lab conducting secret super soldier experiments (or having them done to me). If ever you find yourself in or near Nuremberg please go to this museum and see this for yourself, it is well worth the visit.

After Germany I had a flight to America and a short stay in Santa Monica before Min turned up and we started our big Californian Holiday.

This Blog has been Co-opted

So over the next few posts Min and I will be updating you the reader about our travels in California. The next post though will cover most of my trip to Germany.

Desert Island

Every so often the XKCD comic just posts an amazing strip that says so much with one frame. This one really struck me. so I thought why not share it around.

Enjoy

New Toys

Just wanted to introduce people to my new toys. Well not really toys more like tools but it is fun having things like this especially when you need to get a job done. So with out further adieu Let me put up these photo's

On the left is the Water Blaster a Kartcher G2500 with a genuine Honda engine. Water pressure goes up to 2500psi hence it's name. When looking for a model to buy I found I could buy a Petrol powered one cheaper with much higher pressure output. It also looks like it will do the job and last quite a while. I have cleaned mine and Mine paths and drive ways with it so far and I am very impressed with the pressure and ease of use.

On the Right is a Spray painter a Wagner project 115. It has a 10 litre paint hopper on the top and the same gun as the professional models that sell for over $4000. have used it with some water and spraying is easy. Hopefully there wont be a lot of over spray and the quality of the finish will be what I'm after. I will let you know when I do some actual spraying of paint.

Report on the Dambala

Well I've been a little remiss. I have had a new working, fully built bike for a couple of months now with no report on what it's like. Though in my defence I've been busy trying to renovate a house, which doesn't actually work as an excuse for my lack of posting as I really should be putting up at least a little information about that.

Anyway enough of my waffling on, time to show off the bike.

First off I want to say that I bought this bike piece by piece and assembled it myself. I bought most of the bits from eBay at I have to say excellent prices. One piece, the Handlebars was given to me as a birthday present, so I have to say a big thanks to Dad.


While the price was good and I had time to research each piece before I bought it, it did take an excruciating 6 months of purchases to finally have enough pieces for a working bike. Six months of riding a barely working bike around. I did get impatient several times but there was not much I could do.

What I did get out of it though is a bike that fits perfectly with what I want. I needed a commuter bike to get me around the 'Ville' with speed and with more ease than I've had with my dual suspension bike. Because of my size though I needed a tough bike that could handle the bumps. To that end I had decided on a mountain bike frame but build it up with more road or hybrid type parts.


Most hybrid bikes have large Road bike size wheels but I needed strength as well so I needed to buy a mountain bike wheel. This prompted me to look into an emerging part of the mountain bike market called 29ers.
The basic concept of the larger diameter is simple: there is less of an angle when ever you encounter an obstacle and it's easier to roll over the obstacle. The larger wheel offers increased centrifugal force, which in turn improves the bike’s stability. The extra three inches also increases the amount of tire contacting the ground at any one moment offering better traction.

So I decided to buy a 29er, probably in steel to keep cost down. I needed a slick or semi-slick tyre to keep rolling resistance down so I looked into Schwalbe tires and found the Marathon tires. In the end the Marathon Supreme seemed to suit my purposes best. Next I had to think about a drive train. I had decided to simplify the drive train on my new bike and only have a nine speed bike. I love the clean look of a single speed bike but I'm a slacker and decided I needed at least a few gears. the solution was to only have the rear gears (see the third photo). Lastly but definitely not least I had to figure out the Forks for my bike. I wanted simple and long lasting so I decided not to get a suspension fork. They need maintenance occasionally and are much more prone to failure than solid forks. With that decision made I chose to go with some light weight Carbon forks.

The last important piece was of course the one less car sticker.

I now have a fast fairly light and above all reliable bike that gets me around. Ride Quality is not nearly as forgiving as my dual suspension Specialized, but it is fast and brilliant on the roads where I ride it %90 of the time. I have so far beaten my previous best time to the strand from uni by nearly 10 minutes.

I really have enjoyed building and then riding my new bike. I hope it likes me too as over the next probably 10 years we will be doing a lot of Kilometres together.