China Camp

Day two in the San Fran bay area was a busy one, but first we had a fantastic morning being awoken by the turkeys gobbling around our tent and the woodpeckers making a new nest high up in the trees. I followed the turkeys around a bit and tried to get some good pics of the males turkeys strutting their stuff around the women, unfortunately the light wasn't all that good and I think our camera needs to go in for a service, this trip has given it a few knocks, so only i'm left with a few images that i'll keep.

I managed to see the herd of white-tailed deer that we spotted with our torches the evening before but unfortunately they scattered, albeit gracefully, when they heard my size 10s coming nearer so no photo this time.

We needed the internet and ideally a phone as it was Celia's moms birthday, so we headed to the nearby San Rafael which is a very arty farty town with it's own annual movie festival to rival Sundance, so we hear. We never got the phone but got stuck outside this coffee shop chatting to an American chap who it seems, needed someone to talk to. He was jabbering way about Thailand, house prices, the government, you name it. We were halfway down the street, backing off a half step at a time by the time he realised we needed to go i think... shame.

With all the admin and emailing done at the library we headed for the Berkeley area. Being probably the most famous university town in the US, it was a must. Well it was a real student town with the exception that here the drinking age is 21 so you see a lot less drunk students stumbling down the street than in say PE or Stellenbosch.

We managed to get a nice pair of 'pumps'..? for Celia at this quirky boutique so that put a smile on her face and we headed for the pub. We each had a ginormous chicken salad and pint of cold beer, just enough to keep my beer belly satisfied. Would've stayed for another one but our parking meter was telling us to leave which left me just enough time to shoot into the Berkeley store and by a couple unnecessary items of clothing.

Staying at the campsite another evening would've been fine, but it was a bit out of the city and we really wanted to be in the heart of it so we could do loads of exploring in the morning. I think we found the last room in San Fran, obviously at a premium rate, but not enough to keep me up that night. It could have also been the 10s of episodes of 'The family Guy' I watched until I dunno what hour. Damn I love that show, it makes me laugh. I had to keep it to a snigger though as Celia was counting sheep a long time ago.