As we’ve headed south I’ve been expecting to see more Mexican-inspired architecture and generally this has been the case. What I wasn’t expecting was to find myself in Denmark, but that’s where we appear to be, having arrived in Solvang!

Solvang translates from Danish to mean ‘sunny fields’. The town was settled in 1911 by Danish immigrants and they tried to recreated a bit of Denmark right here in sunny California. In addition to timber framed buildings, there are windmills, lots of shops selling Danish pastries in abundance and a statue of the Little Mermaid and its creator Hans Christian Anderson. It’s all very lovely and a bit weird at the same time. Who knows where we might arrive next on our travels?

Near the end of our long (and hilly) 104 mile ride today (Sunday 11 Sept, 2011), we came across a beach near San Simeon, home to a colony of Elephant Seals. The perfect end to the day.

Being on a long road trip often brings to mind ‘Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’, the movie about three drag queens travelling across the Australian outback in a converted bus. Clearly we don’t have a bus and we are not drag queens, (at least we weren’t last time I checked). But we are covering awesome distances. Today was one of those long stretches, 120+ miles and at points, as the Pacific coastline stretched out ahead of us into the distance, my mind flashed back to the scene in Priscilla when they are looking out over miles and miles of desert as far as the eye can see. I have to admit I have wondered about attaching a long flowing piece of pink chiffon to the bike and blasting out opera through a sound system. However, Mike’s luggage weight restrictions have prevented either of these items being available.

Having any additional drag (geddit?!) while struggling against the awful headwinds we faced today would not have been pleasant, so I suppose the chiffon-bicycle-opera combo will just have to wait for another day.

From San Francisco to Santa Cruz (75 miles) was constant headwind, a shame as it distracted our attention from the really pleasant coastline.

We’ve had another Priscilla moment as we passed (twice) a young guy on a bike laden with four bags, a tent and even a guitar on his back. We’d passed him before in the Redwoods and Eurika, but a bit like the Hare and the Tortoise, he keeps overtaking us! Those familiar with Priscilla will recall the women running across the outback pushing some strange ball who keeps overtaking the coach – this young guy is our equivalent.

Thankfully the wind turned after Santa Cruz, but it still meant that we arrived in Seaside after dark – over an hour later than scheduled. Nick our host was just going out as we arrived – to spend the evening mountain biking in the light of the full moon. We were welcomed by his fiancé Katie who chatted with us all evening and gave some good advice on a Mexican take-away. Today’s exertions have left us pretty weary, so we’re off to sleep now. Only 100 miles to cover tomorrow.

We worked out our final cycle route for today last night using the Garmin/Google map combo. It looks like it will be a wonderful ride on route 35, then Highway 1 all along the coast from San Francisco to near Monterey.

The slightly down side is that it’s a bit longer that we’d thought at nearly 120 miles, but we’ve done it before and we can do it again. Mike was a little displeased at the length of today’s journey, but I know he’ll be fine riding it, especially now our bikes have been fine tuned, tyres pumped etc (fingers crossed for no technical problems) and it was worth it to spend two whole lovely days in SF.

Sadly the old girl didn’t show us her Golden Gate properly, we only got a peak of the top of the towers through the fog, so we’ll just have to return one day. I’m sure we shall.