Wednesday September 18 Gerstle Cove CA

Ian flying the flag for "Our Boys"!!!

Time to farewell  Westport Beach, have loved the remoteness of this place and have met some really nice people, it is called the Lost Coast and can fully understand why. South down the coast and just loved the drive, through small pockets of farmland and trees with the rugged coast right beside the road.

First stop today was at Fort Bragg, a town of about 6000, called at the info centre to find out about a Laundromat, well overdue!. In fact the town has three but she recommended me to one off the highway which was really clean and tidy. Had a big bag of washing so while it was being dealt to, we were able to catch up on 3 days of emails. The town seems to have a high Spanish population with a large number of Spanish foodstores and eating places, and heard a lot of people speaking it.

So after a “hard morning slaving over the washing” walked through town and found a Speakeasy where we enjoyed a good pizza for lunch and a glass of pilsner beer brewed just out of San Francisco.

Got back to the van and checked online to find that Team NZ had won today’s first race in the America’s Cup with the next race Match point for us. Arrived at the really nice town of Mendocina which really reminded me of the East Coast towns of New England, with Victorian styled homes with shingles and light house like turrets. Ian found a store with a guy who cuts his timber from logs and makes his own furniture, just beautiful, came away with lots of ideas. www.andersonsalternatives.com 

After chatting with a couple whose son lives in New Zealand, we ended up in an Irish Pub with them to watch hopefully the last America’s Cup race…only to find the weather had caused another postponement, might have been quite an afternoon.

So set off south down the coast, enjoyed the drive immensely, lots of small farms, little seaside villages, old houses and always the magic of the rocky coastline. We were looking for a campground for the night and called into three, all of which didn’t feel right after our 3 night stay right on the coast at Westport. It was almost 6pm when we spotted campervans parked on a cove right about the ocean…this was the right spot to spend the night. We really want to enjoy the coast as we will be inland shortly for the rest of the trip. It was still really windy when we arrived but by the time the sun set the wind had died down to a beautiful evening and we watched a full moon rise to the east as the sun set in the west.

Ian decided that we needed to support Team New Zealand, out came the black silver fern flag which was tied to a broken broom handle with cable ties (yes, Terry he did find a use for it!!) and attached to the ladder on the back of the van with grey gaffer tape. We will be flying the flag for the boys tomorrow!

Love the pruning on this coastal hedge.

Looking back to Menocina

View below our campsite

And the sun sets on another great day on the coast.