We woke up warm and dry. The rain that had gone on for all day and all night had stopped, and although everything was drenched outside, it was looking to be a clear sunny day.
Within seconds of getting back on the highway, Katherine noticed that she had a flat front tire. We quickly changed the tube and discovered a small staple to be the culprit. Like our previous incidents of flat tires back in Regina, Saskatchewan, we weren’t sure how it managed to get through our puncture proof tires. It’s hard to complain considering our front tires are still the original, but more so since this this was the last original tube out of all of our tires that had survived the entire trip. It survived 9000km, but just couldn’t make it another 1000km to the end!
We rode a little further to the town of Legett and turned off Highway 101 to Highway 1. Highway 1 goes along the coast, and since it’s a much windier road, transport trucks just stay on 101, along with most traffic. Apparently Highway 1 has many sections that bicycles can safely go faster than cars!
After reading our guidebook, we knew we had a big climb out of Leggett to get to the coast. We had to get to an elevation of 2000ft (about 600m) over ‘Leggett Hill’, but since we were already at 1000ft from the day before, we didn’t have much further to climb. As we climbed, the sun shined through the trees and through residual fog, making for a beautiful scene.
The hill was also so well graded that it was a piece of cake, especially to us seasoned touring cyclists 😉 Things always seem easier when we compare it to the 900m climb over the Coastal Mountains in BC, or the many steep graded hills in the Canadian Shield around Bancroft, ON. A valuable and important lesson we learned from this trip is that many hardships in life are not so bad when you put things into perspective. 🙂
The descent, as always, was the best part. It was made all the better by the twisty road, reasonable grade, and a lack of any traffic! The only downside was that we were all a little chilled after the descent through a thick cover of trees in the shade.
Shortly after the descent we had another climb. This was a smaller hill but the grade was slightly steeper. The descent, however, was even better as it was over a longer distance.
We had one last short climb then we hit the coast. It was incredible. Spectacular coastal scenery of an expansive horizon and a beautifully blue ocean dotted with white cap waves, many hitting the shoreline cliffs in a dramatic fashion. For the icing on the cake, the temperature was drastically warmer in the heart warming sunshine, and we had a strong wind from the North-West direction. Finally the promised tail wind for southbound cycling of the pacific coast! This was the cycling on the coast that I had imagined for so long. Beautiful scenery, sunny, warm temperatures, tail winds, and no traffic. All things a touring cyclist wishes for, yet something that is hard to come by all together, all at once.
I had some catching up to do to Rob and Katherine who were on a mission to the next town of Westport. They were both hungry, a little chilled from the descent, and were miles ahead. I finally caught up to them at the local grocery store in Westport. They had found an extremely warm sheltered spot right beside the store. We bought lunch there and also supplies for dinner. It was a very quiet town and the area had a very peaceful feel to it. Rob also made friends with the local dog who was infatuated with chasing after whatever we threw for him. He was especially a big fan of a rock he had found.
After Westport we had more beautiful cycling to our destination of MacKerricher Beach State Park. We got in about an hour before sunset, and quickly setup camp and made dinner while Rob found the camp host to purchase firewood from. The usual area for the hiker/biker and group camping was closed (most sections of campgrounds in the State Parks are closed off in the quiet off-season), so they had setup one of the regular sites as a hiker/biker site. It was nice as it was very close to the showers and bathrooms. It even came with a pylon with a sign of a symbol of a hiker and a biker!
After dinner we quickly walked over to the shore to catch the sunset. The pacific ocean was restless as usual. It had been a while since we were able to catch the sunset since we had been camping surrounded by trees for so long.
After getting back to camp we enjoyed a fire while listening to the waves. A couple overly friendly raccoons even came to visit but all of our food was conveniently enclosed in the provided food cupboard. A very fantastic feature of all California parks we’ve stayed at so far!
Trip Around The World 
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