Detoxing

Today’s ride was, in many respects, as close to perfect as you could get. Waking up early, we had a quick but yummy breakfast of cereal and pastries, before setting off from Cambria bound for Big Sur. We had been a little apprehensive about this leg of the trip. We knew we had over 70 miles to cover and, with a strong headwind, which we expected since we are travelling North against the prevailing winds. When combined with the elevation chart that we had poured over beforehand, it would be no mean feat to complete this in one day. However, everything came together and in the end, even allowing for the puncture about 30 miles into the day, it was a wonderful day, and no arguments either!

Rugged and ragged rocks were the order of the day, with raw seas crashing around them. And on the other side, wildflowers of all colours and sizes dotted across the landscape, and acres of green rolling hills and mountains. In some respects, the hardest part was trying to decide where to stop, and not pulling over every 5 minutes to check that we were not missing a stupendous view behind us…

The weather was extremely kind to us: no tailwind (we don’t expect that anymore) but only a mild headwind, and lots of sunshine to warm us up. We didn’t feel quite as upset as we have done in previous days by the many, many cyclists that we see whizzing past us in the opposite direction. And today we even stopped and spoke to a few people: hello to Tracey and John, who were cycling from San Francisco to Santa Barbara, with only a tiny rucksack each, and Paul (doing the same route) and Scott (wouldn’t you guess it…doing the SF to SB jaunt as well).

We were pleased to reach our hotel for the night, a “back to nature” lodge which we found had no TV, internet, cell-phone reception or any other mod-cons, although was very comfortable. Electronic detox they call it…hmm. Hence, today’s blog will be posted tomorrow.

Us x