MILL CREEK CAMPGROUND Redwood State Park Pacific Coast Highway

Just about to head off from the beach now and we had a brilliant night in the end didn't we? It was really good, we met some lovely people. Oh we met some really fabulous people. Hopefully we can get on the road now and we'll see what what the damage has been done to the the road along the 101. Just driving down the 101 now, we've gone further than we did last night and you can just see a little bit of haze up on the this side of the of the tracks at the moment. This road's quite bumpy isn't it hun? Yeah it is, we're about to go through the area where the fire was on both sides of the road so we should sit up fairly shortly just around this corner I think it's going to be. That was the house up there that was in danger but it looks like it's okay so the fire must have blown around it. Gosh how terrifying for them. So we've still got quite a few emergency vehicles here. You can smell the smoke in the air. These guys have probably been here since last night. It's all burnt here. It's all decimated along the side isn't it? Yeah it is. You can smell it. I'll tell you what they did a great job. Wow this was all on fire yesterday. They done so well to get this put out didn't they? Yeah really well. Look how far it's come around. Look at the viewpoint. We've just stopped at the roadside because this is absolutely stunning. This is very typical of some of the views you see straight on the the 101 doing the Pacific Highway. We're just about to go over Thomas Creek Bridge isn't it Gary? Yeah. And it's apparently it's the highest bridge in Oregon. It's coming up to the bridge now and it's 345 feet. The highest bridge in Oregon. So let's see if we can show you. First of all on this side you've got the sea view obviously which is magnificent and then you have the the sort of woodland in the valleys down there. It's not a very long bridge but it's obviously a very high bridge. We've just crossed the border into California and seen that diesel is £5.29 and right beside it there's this thing called sock shop and Gary goes sock shop more like shock shop. So it's quite expensive. I'm glad I'm glad we filled up just before we left Oregon. Gosh I hope this isn't a sign of it's getting dearer as we go further south Gary. Just entered Redwood State Park and the tree trunks are enormous aren't they Gary? They're huge. They're huge. I mean we haven't seen trees this like big and thick since we were in Australia have we? No. Look at those. Oh we'll probably see some really massive trees while we're here but this is very different from Oregon isn't it Bab? It is completely different. Strange really. Yeah it's not even that far a distance away from the Oregon coast but this looks so different already. Just entering Mill Creek campground where we're staying for the night. Two miles ahead up here part of the Del Norte Coast Redwood State Park. It's actually a little bit of a drive downhill isn't it Babs? It's quite steep. I wasn't expecting it to be like this. We're going to go for a little walk in a minute I think. So this is our pitch. Pitch 124 at Mill Creek campground. Maximum of 25 foot. We've got a bear box here. Lovely rock and a picnic table at the back there. There's also a fire ring in between and I am actually really surprised that they're allowing fires at the moment given the temperatures. Walking around the campsite and look at this massive tree. Gary you're going to even go in it like Gary is six foot two so this will give you an idea of how big this tree is and what's inside. Oh my gosh that's amazing isn't it? Let's see if I can see if I can film right. Oh wow it's just breathtaking. That's amazing isn't it? Where these logs have been like uprooted these big trees. They're all across this this creek. Gary wants to go to the talk tonight which is about bears at eight o'clock but I'm going to be bitten alive if I go so I'm just going to send you aren't I? You can come back with all the bear information while I have a glass of wine back in the van. I grew up with the bear facts. Gary's just come back from the bear talk. I couldn't be bothered to go because there was stuff to be doing around here. That's the sort of stuff I had to do. Go on Gary so tell me about the bear talk. What was it? So it basically was the ranger talking about black bears. Okay. However that was the meat of the sort of presentation. Before we got to that bit we had to do icebreakers songs. One was called a boom chicka boom. Did you know the words? No they were on the screen. Oh they were? It was a big screen and then we had to do I saw a bear. I saw a bear. Under the stair. And he saw me. I did a run. I didn't have a gun. That is not a lyric. I didn't run. I didn't have a gun. Is that a lyric? Really? No that is a lyric. Oh my gosh really? Yeah it was quite fun and then afterwards I answered a correct question in the trivia quiz and I got a sticker. Oh my gosh I don't know whether to be proud or embarrassed. What was the question? The question was how much does your wife weigh? Yeah but she never gave me three options. So what was the question? The question was do bears hibernate? Do black bears hibernate? And do they? It's all about black bears now. They don't hibernate? Not here. Not here. And did everyone think it was a yes then and you knew it was a no? A lot of people thought it was a yes but most people knew it was a no because she'd already told us in the program. So did you win a sticker? Did lots of people win a sticker or did you only win the sticker? No just about every child won a sticker. In fact every child and you? Every child. The only reason I got it is because she was stood right next to me when the question came up and I just went no and she went oh well done sir. Oh gosh I was so glad I didn't go. Like I'm not being funny but another sticker for the van I suppose. It is yes. So what was the big takeaway from there though? Well the big takeaway for us here is that bear spray is illegal in California. Is it? You can't use bear spray in California. So how do you how do you scare the bear? You don't. Well you look. You make friends? You look big. You look big? Well thankfully I've got quite a lot of wine and chocolate to help with that because I'm starting to look bigger every day. So it's all been leading up to this point. Well I didn't realize but I've been mitigating the bear attack. That's right. By looking as big as possible. No seriously. It's illegal. Illegal here. Is it really? You can't do anything like that. So what so how do you like literally you can't just look big can you? That's what you do. You back away slowly. You make a lot of noise and you make yourself look big and the warden suggested that you if you're wearing a jacket you hold your jacket up in the air like that above your head to make you look bigger than the bear. As we're talking Gary tells me some really interesting facts about the pregnancies of black bears. So they deliver while they're asleep. Is that right Gary? That's right. So basically the black bear gets pregnant in the summer. Right. But the body the bear's body doesn't do anything with that pregnancy until the autumn and then it starts to gestate. When she's asleep? No not at that point. She then goes to sleep just before Christmas. Right. The cubs are born in and it's just sleep it's called torpor. So it's not a hibernation it's just asleep. The bears are born in January or February. While she's asleep? While she's asleep and the mother wakes up having given birth already and the bears are suckling. Oh that's an amazing birth. Imagine that. No pain whatsoever. I'm guessing not. Wow. Just trying to work out. We're just leaving Redwoods whether this is the sea or the sky. We've realised it's actually the sky. The sea's a little bit further down below. So you can see in this clearing we are literally in the clouds. We're above the clouds looking down. We are. Onto the clouds and we look wow. Wow we're actually in the clouds aren't we babe? Yeah. It almost looks really smoky but it's just the clouds isn't it Gary? Yeah coming down into the clouds now. We've just bumped into these guys as we've pulled in and they're from this thing called Project One. I'm going to look them up on YouTube. You guys should too. But they're actually travelling from where did you say from? So we came from Toronto. We drove that truck all the way from the east coast. We flew in a bunch of other cars from Toronto to Vancouver and we're driving a Monterey Car Week. Can you believe it? Well they've just pulled up being pulled over by the police with their gorgeous Porsche 11. However the police only wanted to have a look at the car so this is what's really funny but you can catch them on YouTube as well. They're filming this police guy who's just absolutely brilliant and here we are pulled over. It's just these are lovely guys. They're going to go to Monterey Car Week. They're just brilliant. It was really nice meeting you guys. Have a safe trip. They're going to take a video of him leaving. The thing is our van will be in that video. Oh our van's going to be in this video. Oh there they are. They're really nice guys. They've got a better filming kit than us. Bye guys. Safe trip. Look at that. Is that amazing? Oh I love this Gary. We've just parked on the car park here and there's a trail that you can take down to the beach. You can just see down here there's a load of seals on the edge of that water and some cormorants along the edge there. Gary's got his binoculars out so he's having a good old view. Can you see them really clearly Bab? Yeah very clearly. It's a whole sort of loads of generations there from olders back through to pups. Oh how lovely. We just got back in the van at Mad River and Gary has noticed something. What have you noticed Bab? That we are exactly on 70,000 miles on the clock. Right so let's see if I can see that. Oh you're turning it. Yep so you can get in there. Okay 70,000 miles on the clock. We didn't even realise we were going to hit that did we? No we didn't. And how much does that mean we've travelled now? 12,032 miles in total. Oh my gosh that's amazing. 12,032 miles. She's done well isn't she? Very well. Oh we love you girl. The driving conditions at the moment. It's a sheer cliff just there. There's some barriers at some places. It's absolutely terrifying. I feel like I'm doing that Crash Bandicoot game.