Hitting the road north

I slept rather better but still woke earlier than I’d have liked, clearly not yet adjusted to the time difference. It was a lovely sunny morning with none of yesterday’s mist. We had breakfast again at the Bluestone Cafe, then returned to the hotel to check out. We called an Uber to take us to the Sixt car hire office in the Fairmont Hotel, not wanting to drag the suitcases up the steep hill. It was the first time we had used Sixt, and we were very impressed with the service.

We spent a few minutes familiarising ourselves with the car, a VW Jetta, before setting off. We drove (that is, Chris drove) out of the city over the Golden Gate Bridge and soon after turned off the main road to visit Muir Beach where we followed a short boardwalk to the sand for our first look at the Pacific (on this trip!)

We then returned to the main road, stopping again briefly at an overlook above the beach and then continuing north to Olema, a small cluster of houses and a couple of shops where we bought cold drinks and a snack.

Point Reyes

Soon after this we turned off the main road again to visit a couple of locations in the Point Reyes National Seashore. The first, a walk to Abbots Lagoon, was pleasant, with views of open countryside and the lagoon. There were large birds circling overhead and smaller ones (I think California scrub jays) on the fence posts.

We then drove right out to the furthest point where we had another walk to the eponymous headland and lighthouse. This was a super walk, with the sound of waves crashing on the beach below us, a few deer on the rocks above, and at the end a platform with great views out to sea (but no whales) and down to the lighthouse below. We didn’t attempt the 313 steps down to this (described on a sign as ‘wicked'!) as time was short if we were to reach our night’s accommodation in good time on these often slow roads.

Bodega Bay

So we retraced our route to the main Highway 1 and continued north through rolling countryside, looking rather brown and parched, to Bodega Bay and the Inn of Tides. We were given a large room in a block near the top of the complex, with lovely views of the sea which were however impossible to photograph as we couldn’t work out how to open the window!

In the evening we ate at the Tides restaurant on the opposite side of the road, from where we were able to take photos of the sunset before going in to eat. We ordered crab cakes to start but they still hadn’t come when our mains arrived, so we told the waiter not to bother. My fish tacos were a little dull, but Chris enjoyed his grilled chicken sandwich. We shared a slice of cheesecake for dessert before walking back up to our room.