Our planned route was to follow the 101 Hway as it passed through the Avenue of the Giants initially and then swing back to the coast down to Albion before we cut across to Cleaverville. What I hadn't understood looking at our map was that the Redwood Highway was a 32 mile section of the old 101 which was parallel to the new road and was retained to provide access to the Redwood groves that had been preserved by the conservation movement. There were small communities remaining along the Avenue which survive on the tourist trade. We entered this road quite early in the morning and found the self guide pamphlet which suggested that the nicest short walk was just down the road. We decided to take this 2.5 mile stroll and thoroughly enjoyed strolling along the path looking and photographing with hardly anyone else around. We could hear the traffic on the 101 at one point and really appreciated the foresight of the people who had worked to save these groves. The trees are just wonderful. They are soooo tall and amazingly resilient. They have natural fire resistance because their bark is very thick and lacks resin. They can be damaged by fire but like the Tingles can buttress around the damage. Only after repeated fire attacks do they succumb and I did see one burnt out stump.. More seem to be blown over and it takes a long time for them to break down because they are so big so they provide nutrients for the next generation. By the time we were returning to the car more people were arriving to walk so we were glad to have had the quiet time. We heard quite a lot of birds and even heard a woodpecker though he was so high up we couldn't see him.
We then drove on through the Avenue and rejoined the 101 heading for the coast. At lunchtime we found a rest stop which had one picnic table. A young Dutch couple arrived at the same time with the same intention so we shared the table and chatted about our respective travels. The coastal drive down to Fort Bragg and Albion is beautiful and is more scenic than the Big Sur section south of San Francisco in our opinion. We were so close to the ocean cliffs most of the time that we were held up a couple of times by roadworks where they were repairing places where the road edge had given way in last Winters storms.
From Albion to Cloverdale the road followed the river valley and wound over the coastal hills. We passed through more groves of Redwoods though this time they were "River Redwoods" and not as quite as tall. The whole road was shaded by trees of various sorts and we passed through vineyards of the boutique variety. Smaller than the extensive plantings at home or in the Nappa Valley. The day had been pleasantly cool but warmed up as we headed inland.
Cloverdale is an attractive "artsy" town and it was relaxing to stroll the main street while our laundry tumbled. We decided to have pizza for dinner with a bottle of wine we had been carrying for a while. We really are slow to learn, we ordered a large with extra toppings because Aamerican Pizza is sometimes very limited in what goes on top. This was HUGE and wasn't even the largest size. It had plenty of veges on it as well as the chicken and anchovies we had ordered. We could only manage half of it and just hope the cleaner has some hungry children who are not too fussy.
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