Flea The Race

 

Day	22	Date	30th May 2015
Distance Total Distance	59.6km 1,261.6km	Weather	Foggy & Cold
Rolling Time Total Rolling	03:36:31 72:56:47	Terrain	Hilly
Climbing Total Climbing	878m 11,037m	Spend	McDonalds $11.00 Groceries $57.80 Coffee $3.00
Average Speed	16.5k/h	Sleeping	Elk Prairie State Park
Max Speed	50.0k/h	Difficulty	Moderate

I left Kat’s thismorning at around 11am after grabbing a shower and taking it easy for the morning, she recommended a place in Crescent City for breakfast so that was my planned first stop, the town centre is about 4km away form her ranch so I made my way in and had trouble finding the food joint.  Crescent City has about 10,000 inhabitants and their town is a sprawling mess, there isn’t really anything attractive about the place itself, when you think your in the centre your still only at the edge so I saw a Safeway beside a McDonalds and decided that combination would have to do as I needed to stock up on groceries and I needed breakfast.  I stayed in McDonalds for about 2 hours as I decided on a lazy day today, once I stop for a day or 2 it’s hard to get motivated again  to cycle 100km days straight away.  I ended up buying nearly 60 dollars worth of groceries and spent another day outside the store trying to ram it all onto my bike, I even had some of it in my cheeks as I finally cycled off, shopping when hungry without space to carry it all is bad news!  On my way out of the city I finally passed the food joint that Kath had recommended but gave it a miss as I had already eaten and it was almost 3pm at this stage.

I knew my route today had 2 big climb hills that needed to be tackled, one was just a few km outside Crescent City, it took a good 40 minutes to get to the top of it slogging away at 8km/h, it was foggy and cold about half way up and my hands froze off on the freewheel down the other side with the wind against them, they’re super sensitive to the cold right now with their sleepy scabby road rash patches.  There was a coffee shop and Gian Redwood Tree Top Ride at the bottom of the hill and I had to stop off for coffee to warm up my hands as they were too painful to keep going.  Next up was the second hill of the day and by the time I got to it the weather had improved and it wasn’t as cold, I climbed this hill and knew that my campsite for the night was a the bottom of the other side.  This hill was a lot more enjoyable, it was loaded with giant redwood sequoia trees.  They call this area “The Redwood Gate To The Golden State”  Those huge trees sure are impressive, I came by one that had it entire inside hollowed out, maybe to rot but I got myself and my bike in there and I could have put up my tent if I so wished.  The road down the far side of this hill was twisty and lined with redwoods, it was cool to cycle through.

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The campground here is pretty impressive also, its got a huge open area surrounded with forest and loads of little secluded camping spots all with benches and fire pits so as soon as I got the tent up I gathered some deadwood and loaded the fire pit then got dinner going.  I lit the fire and sat by it on the laptop for 2 hours with a cuppa scaly before going to bed.