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lindoig4 · 5 years

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The Last Post for this time.

I have just posted lots of photos and a few videos through to the end of our adventure so this will probably be my last post to this blog.

On Friday the 13th (Black Friday), we took a streetcar to the ferry terminal and a ferry to Larkspur, a town across the Bay in Marin County. I love larkspurs (but we didn’t see any there) and I am not sure what other attractions are around the town of Larkspur, but that is where San Quentin prison is - a big forbidding fortress of a place. Pretty horrible really, not at all larkspur-ish, but so was Alcatraz in its day. A good place to avoid, I think!!

It was not much more than filling in a day, but we had a slow lunch in a pub out there and returned to San Fran 2 or 3 ferries later. When we got back to SF, we decided to take the Castro streetcar to the end of the line just for a look and then stay on it until it brought us back to our hotel. We had (good) vague memories of Castro in 1995 and thought a visit might be nice. Alas, our streetcar driver had completed her shift and was returning streetcar vehicle to the depot, so tipped everyone off a few stops early. We decided to just catch the next streetcar back to downtown which she assures us would be along shortly. ‘Shortly’ turned out to be just over 55 minutes with us and a few others standing around the bus-stop in the blazing sun - not at all the sort of thing we expected.

Saturday, we had booked to go on a 9am whale-watching tour and we were up early and out at the Pier 39 meeting place almost an hour early. We wandered around the precinct and watched the sea-lions and birds for a while until it was time for the tour. We saw a few harbour seals and glimpsed some small porpoises, but the anticipated dolphins eluded us. And as soon as we reached the Golden Gate Bridge, the fog rolled in and we were enveloped in it for the rest of the tour. Visibility ranged from about 50 to 150 metres and although those on the bridge reckoned they sighted one (or maybe 3) whales, they quickly got lost in the fog so none of the tourists saw anything. Having said that, I enjoyed it greatly, not for the whale-watching, but as a pelagic birding excursion and added nine more birds to our trip list. I suspect I was the happiest person on board by a mile!

Back at Pier 39, we had fish and chips and a cold drink for lunch, then sat and watched the world go by for an hour or so before catching the trolley back. We broke the journey halfway to visit the Friday market that sets up not far from the ferry terminal but it was generally disappointing - a lot of junk jewellery, some artwork and not a lot else. There was some sort of parade or military drive-through that delayed traffic and the streetcars for quite a while. Not quite sure what it was, but there were lots of military vehicles, historical and more modern, with lots of personnel waving to the crowd and a dozen police bikes having a great time hooning up and back in some sort of escort but whatever the occasion, it remained a mystery to us.

Needless to say, the parade delayed the streetcars so we had another wait of well over half an hour, thankfully in the shade, until we got our ride the rest of the way home.

We went out a bit later to get some food to-go and ate in the room again with a bottle of local fermented grape juice of the cab sav variety.

Then Sunday was our last day in San Francisco! We fly out tonight and it will be a long uncomfortable trip so we decided to go easy on ourselves.

We caught a trolley bus (by far the best form of urban mass transport) out to the beach, just for the ride. It took us out along McAllister, a long road with all those wonderfully quaint colourful Haight-Ashbury houses - just love them - and along the full length of the Golden Gate Park (North America’s largest urban park) to Ocean Beach.

We watched the crows and gulls for a while, then decided to walk up to Cliff House, a bit over a kilometre along the beach. We visited it back in 1995 and didn’t remember a lot about it other than that they had a big Camera Obscura set up just below Cliff House itself - and I do have vague memories of doing that tour then.

Cliff House has featured in a number of movies, usually as a desolate hideaway miles from anywhere, usually with a gale blowing, thunder and lightning, a storm raging and the baddies on the brink of some dastardly deed that will pour treasure at their feet - until the hero turns up, rescues the maiden and captures the evildoers just before their wicked plan succeeds. The truth is somewhat different with at least two upmarket bars and three restaurants. We had a wonderful lunch in the bistro. They even had a version of a Caesar so we both had one of them - each a meal in themselves and pretty healthy at that. We shared half a dozen deep-fried dumplings (gyozas by another name) and the most delicious baked meatballs I have ever enjoyed. The gyozas were also tastier and more substantial than those we have had before. We sat over the meal for an hour or so then strolled back to the trolley bus and thence back to our hotel. It was a really delightful day, warm and sunny, great for a visit to the beach, to enjoy a superb lunch and we loved every minute of it. As they say, somebody has to do it.......

We sat in the foyer of the hotel for an hour, writing and identifying a couple more birds and suddenly, the shuttle was there and we were on our way to the airport. We got through reasonably easily, although Heather lost a few utensils out of our picnic bag because we forgot to move it into our checked baggage before sending it on its way along the great conveyor belt that will hopefully deliver it to Melbourne tomorrow - whatever day that is (Monday here, Tuesday in Melbourne).

We stocked up on the makings for quite a number of homemade Caesars as we went through the Duty Free clip joint and sat in the lounge for an hour and a half until they called our flight. I intended doing a lot of stuff on my PC - but once again, the beast wouldn’t boot when I turned it on. Fortunately, I backed up most stuff a couple of days ago, but it would still be nice to wake it up and strip the hard drive before tying a brick to it and throwing it into the ocean.

One cute thing that happened as we sat there waiting for the very last episode of our Arctic Odyssey to conclude was that we both got emails starting the formal part of our next adventure to the Antarctic in February - what could be more appropriate?

The long flight home was predictably as dreadful as we imagined. I just don’t know how people endure such flights on a regular basis – I am in awe of them! But obviously, we made it through the very long night – we left SF (30 minutes late) in darkness and we arrived in Melbourne (an hour early) shortly before dawn. Our wonderful driver (Nick) who our more wonderful travel agent (Bev) provided as a freebie for us gathered up our bags and delivered us home in style, quick and comfortable after our overnight ordeal. The rest of the day was a bit of a blur, starting the elongated unpacking process, wading through the mountain of mail Nath had collected for us, making a few urgent appointments and planning the schedule for attending to the 30-odd tasks that had accumulated on our to-do list while we were away. After no sleep the night before, we were in bed before 10pm and asleep about 15 seconds later.

Some statistics…… Our trip took us to 6 countries (depending on how we count them) with 9 border crossings, including 13 US States (a quarter of all of them) and all Canadian Provinces except Prince Edward Island. In total, I calculate we travelled close about 80000km.

And perhaps more important (for me) was our bird count. I identified 148 discrete species, but some were seen in more than one country – so my country stats were as follows:

USA 55 Canada 64 Norway 30 Iceland 30 Greenland 20 Denmark 10 (Total 209)

We had previously seen some of these before, either in Australia or our other trips, but of the 148 species we saw this trip, were 78 species we had never seen anywhere before.

So what were the highlights of the trip? Very hard to say, but perhaps some narrative would help me to get a clearer picture in my own head.

It is hard to rank my experiences on this trip, but some of the highlights so far are as follows:

* In the US, the Zephyr train, specifically the romance of the buttes, mesas and arroyos of the Cowboy Country, mainly in Colorado, took me right back into so many hundred Westerns and cowboy books I read when I was just a young buck trying to emulate John Wayne. Then it was the Canyons - truly majestic scenery in the Cascades and particularly the Rockies.

* In Svalbard, the close wildlife encounters with Arctic Foxes, Reindeer and Walruses - and to a lesser extent, the Polar Bears. My favourite birds have been the beautiful white Ivory Gulls and dainty Arctic Terns. I was also delighted with the miniature flora in the tundra.

* Being in the Arctic Circle, right up to 83 degrees, only about 1000-odd clicks from the North Pole, was an experience I only ever dreamed about. Seeing so many dozen glaciers, watching them calve icebergs, and navigating through the resultant ice fields was wonderful. Even more so, being in the pack ice, leaning over the bow and watching our mini-icebreaker crunching through a metre of ice was mind-boggling. But actually standing on and walking on a glacier topped even that - simply thrilling! (Not sure why that was such a big deal, but it was unforgettable for both of us!)

* The Polar Plunge – insane but absolutely an experience of a lifetime.

* Then the extreme challenge of climbing the moraine and finding a fossil for myself was an achievement of which I am quite proud. The fossil is less than spectacular but getting there and back alive was no mean feat.

* In magical Greenland, the splendour of the mountains, cruising up close and personal with the magnificence of the mighty icebergs, the dramatic scenery in stark contrast with Svalbard, the dearth of birds that barely outnumbered the musk ox, were all issues that made us think about so many things in a new way.

* Iceland was simply gorgeous with the waterfall, the geyser and spectacular coastline. I want to go back and explore a lot more widely. Standing with one foot on each of two of the world’s great techtonic plates was another ex\perience of a lifetime.

* Newfoundland was beautiful and Cape Spear a tick to mark the start of our cross-Canada journey.

* Niagara – not something I would do again, but like Uluru, the Pyramids, the Eiffel Tower or the Grand Canyon, an iconic tourist destination that one has to endure if one is passing.

* The birds and other uncommon (for us) wildlife and flora – especially the tiny Arctic trees and other plants.

I could probably replace several of these with other wonderful sights and experiences, but that is at least a sample of the things that will stay in my mind for the rest of my life.

I think that is it for this time but we are already well into the planning for our next trip – already booked and paid – so roll on February and the Antarctic!!!

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