I have to admit to having a bit of a tantrum. We drove over Hell Ridge (it wasn’t as bad as when I had to do it) and hit the Indian Yukon reservation to buy some petrol, only to realise that because someone else had been filling us up before that we didn’t know what kind of petrol we needed. Ten minutes of bickering and sulking (on my part) later we filled up and went on our way.
The Redwoods National Park is undoubtedly amazingly beautiful, and the world’s largest Paul Bunyan is something I’ll never forget. But I found the place oppressive, depressing and I couldn’t wait to put it behind me. It was nothing but a place of wrong turns, dim light and a general feeling of gloom. Good riddance.
Fortunately, as we came off the 101 on to the Avenue of the Giants the sun came out and we put the roof down – we’d finally put the shitty weather behind us and were entering California proper.
The Humboldt National Park is just amazing, and The Avenue of the Giants is on another level. 31 miles of the most incredible trees you’ve ever seen. I was brought up in a forest, so impressive trees are nothing new, but this was something on a whole different scale.
We pulled over a couple of times and went for a walk in the woods and were pleased to discover the tallest tree in the world. And then were as disappointed to discover it had fallen over in 1991.
I remember as a kid reading some kind of encyclopedia that told me all about the world’s tallest trees and being awestruck, and here we were seeing them for real. Amazing.
But the real thrill was driving through the ‘Drive-thru tree’ – I remember seeing it in a photo when I was a tiddler and not being able to even comprehend a tree that there was such a thing as a tree you could drive through. But, well I’ve done it now, and it was just amazing – and cheesy. A lifetime ambition ticked off!
At the end of the Avenue of the Giants is a town that was billed as the ‘economic hub of the Humboldt’ – Garberville.
Well, for all of you that thought that America was a big place, I can tell you that Garberville is basically 300m of main street, six motels and two restaurants. Sometimes this country can surprise you with how shitty some of the towns can be. But then that’s what we came here for.
We went into town (well, walked two hundred yards down the road) and went for a drink in the Branding Iron saloon. We meet a thoroughly nice guy called Abraham who was a firefighter, drank some beer and retired to our motel.
Another mad day put behind us.
