June 11th - Biking the Bridge

Today we make a reasonable start out of the hotel, well 10am anyway, we are hiring bikes and are going to cycle over the Golden Gate bridge.

We pick up our bikes about 1.5 blocks from the start of the new cycle track that takes you almost to the start of the bridge path, they are very good condition mountain

bikes. We pay for a

Junior bike for Baggage, but she is too big for what they give her so they swap it to the same size as Lisa has, not bad as the junior price is just over half the full price.

It takes us over two hours to reach the base of the bridge which we were told would only take an hour, but we stopped numerous times along the way, including about 20 minutes at the Sea life visitors centre. There were only two inclines on the way to the bridge, Baggage struggled with both of them so it gave us all an excuse to get off and walk!

Of all the bridges we have seen since this trip started the Golden Gate has to be the most impressive, the way the colour contrasts the surrounding scenery, that fact that it is not simply a flat grey, the two tall towers and long spans, and maybe as Lisa suggested the fact that on the far end there is open countryside, it does not simply span city to city. It is also the least 21st century modified of all the big bridges we have seen, the walk way is not lined with high fencing to stop you throwing yourself off, in fact all that is between you and the fall to certain death in the channel below is a slightly above waist height railing with not even a fully enclosed panel beneath it.

Biking over the bridge was great, our path out of San Francisco would not have taken us this way so by biking it at least we get to cross it without going miles out of our way on Saturday. It was not as windy on the bridge as I expected, in fact we had ideal weather for a bike ride, there was a breeze, the sky was blue and the sun was warm but not too hot.

The bridge was busy, but I guess not as busy as I expected, we were able to find plenty of empty spaces and stop wherever we wanted for photos etc.

On the Sausalito side we stopped at a look out to look back at the city before heading down the hill into the town. the hill was very steep and there was no cycle path, possibly the most dangerous part of the entire trip. Sausalito is a quant town, which does not seem to have become oversized as a result of being close to San Francisco, in fact the entire area does not appear oversized, maybe it is just the use of low level housing as we are on the earth quake belt.

From Sausalito we caught the ferry back to San Francisco then cycled back up to return our bikes. After the bikes were back we stopped at Ben & Jerry’s for a well deserved ice cream treat.

After the ice cream we returned to the hotel for a couple of hours before we ventured out for dinner.

Tonight we are going where Baggage wants, Rain Forest Cafe, a typical chain of restaurants where the menu is the same and the food tastes the same the world over, but it is fun and Baggage likes it and as I said it was her choice. Baggage has a meal off the kids menu, Lisa has pot roast and I have coconut shrimp and Maui Maui, we also get a complementary starter courtesy of a voucher I had found. Tot drink I have a glass of a beer called Fat Tyre (I did check the name with the waiter and he assured me it was not Flat Tyre!), possibly the nicest pint since we left New Zealand. With her drink I let Baggage have one of their souvenir lightening glasses, something else we now have to fit in the suitcase.

After dinner Lisa and Baggage return to the hotel whilst I go for a walk, camera in hand. I head right out to the harbour wall that is at the start of the park area as this gives a good view of the bridge, but the sunset is not as dramatic tonight, there is a big cloud sitting right over Sacramento hill and the sun hides behind here as it goes down. Hopefully we should see some better sunsets as we head down Highway 1 and then later across the desert!

Back at the hotel room I had a bottle of Anchor Steam and then had to pop out to Safeway to get some milk before turning in for the night.