Our day began with the final few miles of the Avenue of the Giants. The scent from the redwoods and the wild fennel was almost enough to give us a natural high for the rest of the day. The sun was scorching as we left Miranda and stayed with us for a good while.

Passes the first road sign for San Francisco –

Most of today was downhill from the redwoods to the sea, but two significant climbs took us high up through pine forests before bringing us back down on a fast and twisty white-knuckle descent. As we climbed, so did our body temperatures and we built up quite a sweat. The temperature stayed high too – until we descended. As we whizzed down, so did the temperature. By the time we reached the bottom of the descent we were back in the sea-fog. This stayed with us pretty much all the way in to Fort Bragg. It’s a strange kind of fog, not the thick stuff we get in the UK that hangs close to the ground. This fog hovers overhead, blocking out the sun and appearing very spooky as trees and mountains vanish into it above our heads.

Before we started our ascent we stopped at a garage to get sone refreshments. We took advantage of the facilities while we were at it. As we stood by eating, one of the customers heard us talking and asked if I was French! He then went onto ask if ‘we wanted to get high before we set off’. We politely declined as neither of us have ever taken weed or any other mind-bending substances, (I’ve always found there to be plenty of daily occurrences to bend my mind without further assistance). As it turned out the climbs ahead of us provided plenty of highs for one day.