We hiked to Fern Canyon, about a 2 hour hike from the campground through the Redwoods in the morning. At the end of our hike we found out from a sign with a photo that we somehow missed the actual famous Fern Canyon (apparently was in a scene in the Jurassic Park sequel ‘The Lost World’). We never-the-less still had a great time hiking. To our surprise and slight dismay, we arrived at a parking lot at the end of our hike, and found out that you could just drive to the Fern Canyon. It was therefore much less remote than we had thought, but the thought of hitchhiking back became very appealing after a long hike (our legs were quite tired from all the cycling!).
After about 10 min walking along the dirt road, the first car stopped and we ended up getting a ride with Stephanie from Southern California. She was very kind and picked us up without hesitation. She had driven up to see the Redwoods and area and we had a great time chatting with her. She went a few miles out of her way to drop us off at our campground.
When we arrived, to all of our surprise and delight, there were a few elk with very large antlers hanging around the campground. The sun also came out and it became very warm very quickly. We all got some great photos while we had a quick bite and said our thanks and good byes to Stephanie.
Since we started after noon, our ride today was rather short. We decided to call it a day at Patricks Point State Park, as the recommended stop in our guidebook of Eureka was too far for the daylight remaining.
We had a good few hours to set up camp, have dinner, and go for a quick walk before it became dark. Unfortunately it was cloudy and there was no beautiful sunset to be seen off the coast, although we imagined what a spectacular scene it would have been. While we were setting up camp another cyclist arrived, but he didn’t seem too interested in talking or hanging out with us, and he stealthily set up camp at the far end. It seemed like he was hiding from the park rangers perhaps?
The hiker-biker site was very far from all the other camp sites (at least a kilometer by road). Luckily there was a brand new bathroom/shower building at the hiker/biker site. I later found out while all ready to have a hot shower, that the shower machine was happily taking my quarters without turning on. Ugh! They had 3 showers in the building but all the other showers were locked/closed for what appeared to be the season.
After dinner Katherine and I decided to walk to the other sites to get a shower. Rob gave up and decided to head to his tent to work on his journal. Katherine and I walked for about 10 min to get to the other campground, only to find out it was closed for the season! By this time it was pitch black and we needed our flashlights. There was one more campground in the state park which apparently was where the only working shower building was. We walked for another 10 min to get there at which point it started raining. California has had some budget cuts with their state parks for maintenance has gone down hill a little, and the shower building was a little run down. For $5 per cyclist we don’t have too much to complain about, but the other regular sites range from $35 to $45 in the off-season which is even higher than what we found in Ontario Parks in Canada! In the end we did manage to get our hot shower. Afterwards we had another 10min walk back in the rain to get back to our campsite. If we had known it would involve over 30 min of walking (half of it in the rain) after a day of cycling, I think we would skip the showers!
I had planned to make more food when we returned, but by this point the rain was coming down rather heavily and we decided to be satisfied without our second dinner (we are always hungry..). We fell asleep to the sound of rain hitting our tent.
Trip Around The World 
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