Pt 7. MacKerricher State Park

Another longish drive as we make our way north to Marin/Sonoma counties via Santa Cruz, San Francisco and the magnificent Golden Gate bridge.

Santa Cruz is like a Californian Blackpool. Colourful, noisy and just the right side of tacky, it’s busy on this drizzly Monday afternoon as Americans enjoy one of their many bank holidays.

We're charmed by the traditional boardwalk and the ancient wooden rollercoaster but are less keen on the bigger white-knuckle affairs. It always tickles me to watch people pay good money to be scared witless on those things. Why not invest in a crappy portrait of Michael Gove? Far more likely to induce nausea.

Sadly there’s no time to linger in San Francisco but we do spend a few minutes by the bridge. Such an iconic, beautiful structure. It’s Steve’s turn behind the wheel so he has the honour of driving across.

Another hour up the coast and we come to the first of the campsites we’ve earmarked on the map. Except the campsite isn’t there. No worries, we go to the next one, but that isn’t there either. Maybe relying on the map we bought 18 years ago when we first visited California isn’t such a great idea.

So it’s another evening setting up camp on a site miles from where we planned. In the rain. in the dark. Happy days.

The rain looks like hanging around for the next few days, so rather than mope around we press on in the morning, taking our time to edge further up route 1. It’s a different gig now, the bright blue sea and skies replaced with 50 shades of grey. 

Still terrific though – just a shame my camera phone doesn’t do it justice.

We drop anchor at MacKerricher State Park, just outside the hippy enclave of Fort Bragg. The higher up the coast we drive the wilder and more leftfield it gets. We’re only 130 miles north of San Francisco but it seems a whole lot further.

This is proper middle of nowhere weirdsville with an assortment of local characters to make us feel right at home. After a couple of beers in town we’re deliberating on whether to splurge on a cab back to the campsite when the lovely Cindy overhears us and offers us a lift.

It’s not on her way and we’re total strangers yet she insists we jump in the back of her beat up old car. She has lots of fantastic tales; mainly involving the tribulations of the local cannabis-growing community of which we suspect she’s a leading light.

We love her, and we love this overlooked corner of California.