SFO to Oakhurst

There was lots to do in San Francisco, and not enough time; an extra day would be good. So last night we tried to find accommodation in San Francisco, but gave up about 1am. It was either too expensive, or didn't have parking, or was too fast away. Next time we'll stay near the centre, and get a car only when ready to move on.

We drove west from Castro Valley, there was a lot of traffic and it looked dry. The traffic dropped off as highways took the cars north and south. There were lots of fruit and nut orchards, with raised concrete lined irrigation channels. The consistent warm, dry weather combined with water from the mountains means good crops.

We had lunch Oakdale, assign at the entrance said "cowboy capital of the world" but I saw no cowboys, indeed not even any cows within at least 50 km of the place. But in the cafe they had nice quotes from George W Bush, and it was fun going through the big hobby store next door. Unfortunately the highway was being upgraded and in the diversion we ended up on the wrong road. This lead us through drier rolling hills that could have been transplanted from Tasmania provided you didn't look too closely at the trees.

Up into the mountains the road wound, in and out and quite spectacular. Late afternoon we arrived to Mariposa where we found dinner in an excellent restaurant, Luci having lemon rosemary roast chicken and I a large and very tender lamb shank. Afterwards as it was getting dark we continued south to Oakhurst where we had an AirBNB reservation. The house wasn't that easy to find, when we got there it was dark. The host told us a little about the park, she also told us bears visited her house on the outskirts of town, though she hadn't seen them.Read more