HOLIDAY, NOVEMBER 2014 (07) - POINT REYES NATIONAL SEASHORE

NOVEMBER 02 (Cont’d)

After getting back into the car at Muir Overlook, we continued on northwards and ended up at Point Reyes Station, a rather nice little town that we would return to later on in our trip, before doubling back and arriving at the “Visitor Center” that we had passed on the way to this mis-chosen GPS destination.

Precise terminology is the key to all things, navigation-wise, it seems…

The visitor centre was actually very good indeed, and the Park Rangers on duty were extremely helpful and, once we’d asked about bird-watching opportunities in the area of the Point Reyes National Seashore, we were given printed lists of what had been seen where, and the best sights to go to see the birds.

There was a short, half-mile “Earthquake Trail” nearby, but, after considering trying it out, we decided to take their suggested opportunity to visit Point Reyes Lighthouse, given that, on that day, for once it was not supposedly actually entirely enshrouded in cloud.

The one thing that the visitor centre seemed to be lacking was anywhere to buy food or water, a fact which would unfortunately catch up with me later, but on that sunny afternoon, such thoughts were not in our minds as we set off on the forty mile round trip to the lighthouse.

However, an extra forty mile journey added on top of all the travelling from England the previous day, might not seem all that much, but it really, really started to get to me after a while.

Perhaps it was just the fact that the roads got more and more “rough” the further you got from civilization, or perhaps it was just the knowledge that every mile driven in the “wrong” direction would have to be driven again later on, or maybe it was just being desperate for a bit of food and drink, but, whatever it was, that drive was a bit of a hard slog as we passed through the imaginatively named “Historic Farm A” and “Historic Farm B” and so on, right through to “Historic Farm G” (We’d see some of the other letters on another day), wondering whether the addition of the magical word “Historical” to anything in America was almost certain to draw in the tourists.

Anyway, eventually (because this was not a route built for speed), we arrived at a point somewhere fairly close to Point Reyes Lighthouse, and the visitor centre had obviously been doing sterling work in passing the word about the lack of fog, because the car park was packed to overflowing, despite the remoteness of the location.

After wondering whether we might have to turn back we instead decided to risk the wrath of any Park Rangers who might potentially draw up by parking, as several other cars had, at the side of the road, although not in the area designated unsafe to even walk on due to the crumbling nature of the sheer cliffs.

Then we walked a fairly long way in the comparatively blistering heat, noticing the astonishing beauty of Point Reyes Beach below us (which I was determined to get a picture along the centre line of for some insane reason), and found a gate leading towards the lighthouse itself which turned out to be another quite long walk as well, given our lack of fluid refreshment.

Anyway, I took some pictures of a couple of dull white wooden sheds, took some more of some interesting-seeming-at-the-time-but-very-dull-to-look-at-once-you-get-home radar antennae, and finally spotted the lighthouse far below us at the bottom of a long flight of stairs that we decided not to attempt.

More snapshots were taken and a ‘little shop” was discovered which contained a few souvenirs, a few stuffed birds (including a Pelican which are HUGE – and dangerous - when you get up close to them it seems), and no refreshments whatsoever.

So we acquired some tat, walked back towards the car, and headed off back through farms G to A, with me feeling perhaps slightly churlishly miserable (given that we had planned to visit more places like this throughout our trip) at still having to drive about seventy waterless miles before we would arrive at the hotel we had already booked in a lovely little town that we had stayed in several times before.

After all that, and a fast-brewing headache, we were finally heading to the Wine Country, where Sonoma, the “El Pueblo” Inn, and the monster portions of the meals at the “Black Bear” diner would see us through the evening.