A week hiding under the splendour of redwood trees while ploughing down south at breakneck speed. On the way we've somehow, through the blur, managed to see bears, eat weird food, fail to fix air mattresses, chilled in a jacuzzi, picked up good luck and got naked in a laundrette. So our return to California has been eventful one with the end of the USA leg truly becoming a reality.

The morning dew had drenched our lovely home by the time we were rushing to get out of the campsite in the morning. But once we had made it back on the road we were spirited along by friendly seals floating causally about in the bay alongside us. Damp and wet as they were, they were enjoying themselves much more than my cold, wet finger tips! So to kill time till the temperature rose a little with the rising sun we pitched up at a library, always a good source of internet round these parts, and were entertained by a guy across the road on holiday and some other guys passed out in the quaint little car park. Time really got the better of us though and Hannah Jo unknowingly overtook us by a fair margin so we had to play catchup! We found her around lunch time tucking into the most American of food combinations. Fried chicken and waffles. It was so intriguing that Ruth and myself just had to try it to believe it! So with that unmistakable full belly we plodded on into the afternoon to a half decent RV park where we indulged in some beer and edibles. Well you need to unwind somehow after long days in the saddle, although I don't think it helped in our attempts at fixing punctures in air mattresses and inner tubes...

Hannah Jo well and truly beat us out of bed, driven by the excitement of second hand news regarding the amazing upcoming towns. We would later find out that this hyped hearsay wasn't always accurate... Once we'd got our act together we met back up with her in the town of Coos Bay in a funky café, after being nearly killed by coal rollers on a bridge along the way. This café was about the only thing around that didn't look extremely dodgy. And it was well hidden behind some dodgy looking scaffolding! From the smell to the heavy traffic to the unsavoury characters meandering the street. Not sure why we decided to pull out lunch at this point. But we did, and this invited over Mr 'best-not-to-get-involved-with-this-guy' number 1 to come over and mumble something threatening sounding to me. Thanks to my personal translator, Hannah Jo, it turned out he was asking to borrow my ID so he could buy some pot for himself... Not convinced that the British driver's licence of a shaven headed 20-something would help this shaggy west coast bum, we decided to book it straight the hell out of there. Thankfully we had got out into the countryside before our travel companion got her first puncture, which was the only real hiccup until reaching a pretty windy camping spot right on the edge of a small cliff overlooking the harbour at Port Orford. We were forced to hide from the howling winds inside some shaky tents, but happy for the chance to get a lie down.

During the night we discovered that out attempts to fix Ruth's blow up bed had failed and my own had picked up a leak! What a saga this was to become but more on that later... Again Hannah Jo was the early riser, although today mainly due to the wind buffeting her tent and the ensuing cold after getting up. We didn't have the greatest of nights for similar reasons and compounded by flat air pads. So while our friend was getting chatted up over breakfast in a nearby greasy spoon we headed out into a mix a steep valleys and stunning coastline, the Samuel H. Boardman State Scenic Corridor. Sandwiched between the sharp rocks piercing through the long waves rolling off the Pacific Ocean and the steep hillsides painted in pine trees, we made our way south. It seems some people enjoy the drive so much that their eye gets taken away from the task of driving and they end up crashing over the edge! We saw a good example of this along the way where the crash barrier had been totally taken out and the trees down the slope were scared all over with shrapnel... Anyway, our plan for sleeping that night was to rock up in the harbour town of Brookings and find a campsite, however it was a little on the rough side and all the campsites were not allowing tent camping so we resigned ourselves to waiting till late and camping anyway in a place down on the harbour, passing the time with the sea otters down on the water front. However we grew impatient and started to do the rounds of the RV park we had found to see if we could maybe just set up. Enter Eric and Michelle stage left! A young couple moving to Alaska invited us to stay with them in their airstream and we jumped at the offer! We spend a evening with them and their excited, waggy tailed dogs. We were certainly glad for it after hearing from Hannah Jo that she'd been on the bus with a homeless lady who was showing off her flick knife and desire to buy a handgun to keep her safe on the streets of this not so lovely town...

We started the morning creeping out of the airstream early on without waking our hosts to cross once more into California and catch a bus. A bus you ask? That's right we were running out of time and energy to get down to San Francisco and the local buses were a handy way to make progress as they had bike racks on the front. So we took it down to the start of the Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park and got off to enjoy the experience at a slower bike pace. But it wasn't long before Ruth regretted this decision, breaking down at the thought of her stupidity, getting off such an easy form of transport and ascending a sizeable hill... But soon the decision was justified as giants started to sprout out of the ground all around us. And so it was, a day of feeling incredibly small in the shade of the coastal redwoods, the tallest trees on the planet. We took a little time off the bikes hiking down one of the various trails and eventually rocked up at the campsite to reunite with Hannah Jo, not before Ruth had the chance to hug another huge tree! Here we picked up our first bit of good luck, Ecuador style. Hannah Jo had spent some time living in the Amazon there and apparently it was good luck to find a dead owl. It sounded morbid at first but actually it was nice to take something positive out of a sad situation! The evening passed peacefully by between chats and the continuing saga of fixing air mattresses.

Another day and another bus! That was our only constraint as they ran pretty infrequently so we made the most of the morning to hike up into the woods and gaze in awe at natures own fortresses towering over us. Over us and the local bear population it would turn out! Finally we had the chance to see some black bears and try and take a photo without the darkness making it impossible. There was a little family chowing down on the abundant berries just off the path, quite a sight and a real treat for us. Eventually we had to tear ourselves away to catch the aforementioned bus, the stop for which was in the scary looking town of Orick with a stressed out Indian guy shouting at me in the shop when I asked him politely where the bus stopped and he kept showing me to timetable he had in his store. Something was lost in translation but we managed to get on board and into nearby Arcata. Meeting up once more with Hannah Jo, who had cycled, we headed to a campsite, which we had no intention of paying the ridiculous price tag for, but decided to indulge in the outdoor hot tub into the evening to ease our tired bodies.

In the morning we found ourselves waiting for the next bus in Eureka and had time for a quick visit to the laundrette. Although with no clothes to wear while everything was getting washed I got butt naked and wore my one clean pair of pants before Ruth saved my blushes and lent me a pair of short shorts. So just in time we got to the bus stop, Ruth found a penny for more good luck and made a wish that we'd be able to get all three bikes on even though there was only space for 2 on the rack. And so it was! The luck of the owl and Ruth's wish sent us a cool driver who let us take them all onboard. We got off part way through the "Avenue of the Giants", a winding road that takes you through Humboldt Redwoods State Park and its many missing person posters... So we twisted and turned through the giants, taking some time for lunch by some huge upturned roots, and made our merry way down to Benbow. We'd hoped to cycle through one of the trees however we only found cons along they way charging considerable sums of money to cycle through dead stumps of redwoods held up with cables. So we passed on that one... On arrival at the campsite we found reasonably priced hiker biker spaces, although as we were the first to have ventured there all year, the space was occupied by a Mexican family, their city of tents and volleyball net. Not matter. We had some beers to down and some rest to sleep so we settled into our slice of the latino city for the evening.

To end the week we had our biggest hill since the Rockies to get over on our way back to the coast. It was quite the climb but not as bad as expected, actually it was worse for some guy in an Aston Martin who broke down at the top and was facing the prospect of having to leave his precious car up there all night, something you'd be quivering in your boots about if you'd cycled through the nearby unsavoury towns we had! The decent promised to be stunning according to Hannah Jo's second hand news, however as we had begun to learn this wasn't always the best of sources. Maybe it was the thick fog and accompanying cold that took away from the experience and views. Then once on the coast it was a roller coaster ride up and down, up and down, up and down. Steep every time. And not even with the reward of coastal views that were hidden behind the blanket of fog. Na well, it felt authentic none the less and we wheeled, broken, into our campsite late on with yet more beer to see off the week.