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We arrived at Napa, home to californian wine :) after two very scenic, but rainy, days driving through Northern California. The rain didn't matter though, because the scenery was just as stunning (if very different) to what we saw in Oregon.
First stop was the Redwood National Park - a large forest made up of the most ginormous Redwood trees you have ever seen. We did a short trek and once in the middle of the trees it was magical, like something out of Avatar. The trees were really dense and where some had fallen over, they had just been left so you could see their even bigger routes and all the wildlife living in them. Their sheer size was quite overwhelming, not only tall really really wide and we guessed, 1000s of years old. Our tree-awe continued about 100 miles south when we saw a sign for Tour Thru Tree which sure enough, was a Redwood tree wide enough to drive a car through! Huge excitement and much hilarity followed as john tried not to crash the car mid-tree. He suceeded and the pictures are ace!
After the Redwood National Park, we hit the far Northern Californian coast and a town called Crescent City which was our first glimpse at the rugged rocky coast-line. It was beautiful, even more so because of the weather was crazy, almost illuminous grey skyline and fast-moving clouds. We followed similarly beautiful cliffs and rocky shores as we drove south, a particularly stunning place was called Patrick's Point and a rocky outcrop there which you could climb a little bit into the sea, allowed you to see back to the mainland as well as down to the see and appreciate how vicious the waves were, battering the coast line.
We spent the night at a scary one-horse town where the horse had left, called Eureka (used needles on the street, all bar one pub closed by 9.30 on a Friday etc) before driving on to wine country the next day.
Arriving in Napa Valley, the rain intensified, as did the traffic as we met half of california out doing their saturday wine tasting! We didn't quite get to appreciate the vista of the rolling vineyards because of the lashing rain, which was a shame because Napa Valley spans 50 miles, so there is a LOT of vineyards to see, but we made up for it the next day by trying a few on a wine tour!
We booked a wine tour so we'd both be able to try some wines without John having to obstain so he could drive, it turned out to be the best decision ever as we had great tour of five small boutiquey vineyards we'd have never found overselves and got to be ferried around in a Limo at the same time! I hadnt quite appreciated the limo bit when we booked it, so as we stood outside our more than shabby, dog-smelling motel in the out-skirts of Napa, waiting for the mini-bus, we were more than a tad surprised when this stretched black limo rolls up instead. It was a good thing the rain continued too because I was so over-excited about taking pictures inside the limo, I don't think I would have noticed the vineyard scenery outside, even if I could have seen it through the rain, and later wine eyes! The day was great fun and very amusing, I was nicely drunk by 11am, lots of the vineyards took pity on us because we were English and gave us much nicer wines to try than we had paid for, and the 4 other people we shared the tour with who started off politely ignoring us, and each other, were telling us their life story after vineyard number 3. I can highly recommend it!
Our favourite vineyards were Sequoia Grove (amazing Cabernet Sauvigion and rose) and Jessops (BEAUTIFUL port $90 a bottle!) but we also visited Hagaufen, Goose Crossing and Black Stallion.
The next day, as we left to begin the drive to San Francisco, the sun was out and we got to see some of those rolling vines we had missed in the rain the past two days. It made us love the wine even more!
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