golden gate bridge

Another street car
At Sausalito
Just before going onto the Golden Gate

At Crissy Beach

Today we hired mountain bikes from Ride and Roll and rode them to the Golden Gate Bridge. The ride across the bridge was fantastic, you are 68 metres above the water and the pylons are about 150 metres above the road way. The view back across the bay to San Francisco is also very nice. We took a lot of photos of the bridge as you get so many different views as you ride along. We ended up about 9 miles from San Francisco in a place called Sausalito where we had fish and chips for lunch. After lunch we caught the ferry back to pier 1. There is a street car museum near pier 1 so we took a look at that, it was interesting to see all the old tram and street car memorabilia. We then rode the bikes along all the piers back to the bike hire place. After dropping the bikes off we caught the street car back to the Hostel. Once again we took advantage of the $5 meals at the hostel. Not sure what we have planned for tomorrow as this will be our last day before we pick up the hire car.

alcatraz

Richie at Alcatraz

Alcatraz IslandSFPD on Lombard St

Lombard Street

San Francisco Street Car

Today we got up nice and early and then went to have breakfast at the hostel. There was so many different types of bread for breakie it was not funny. After breakie we caught the "F" line street car to Pier 33 and bought tickets to Alcatraz. You have to catch a ferry out to the Island and it takes only about 15 minutes to get there. Once on the Island you basically get to go to all the different points of interest at your own pace. You get to have an audio mp3 player which gives you a story of what it would be like to live as an inmate. There is so much more on the island than just the penitentiary. We ended up spending about 4 hours on the island.

Once back on the main land we had lunch at Pier 39 in the Wipe Out Cafe. Burgers for lunch with chips, ketchup and mustard.........now that's American. Once we had lunch we walked along the piers and made our way up the hills from the water to Lombard Street. The street is famous in movie car chases and you can see why once you get there. There was a lot of cars going down the street just because they can! The houses along the street were very cool too, all nice gardens and hedges and stuff. Also got the picture of the SFPD member and patrol car (cruiser) doing a lap as well.

After Lombard Street we decided to get the "F" line and catch the Cincinnati street car. The yellow one in the photos. These street cars are really cool, and all of them are old (1948 ish) and all different colours and stuff. We caught this street car to Castro which is the cosmopolitan area of San Francisco. The place was full of rainbow flags and rainbow everything else. Just a few princesses taking their dogs for a walk really. Went into a pet shop there and it was really camp too, spoilt cats and dogs must live in the area.

Well tomorrow looks like it will be the bike ride to the bridge and then maybe the street car museum. Check back tomorrow for the latest update.

san francisco

Fishermans Warf

The Golden Gate Bridge

Alcatraz

On the Cable Cars

Bronte on the Cable Car

Hi to everyone who is watching our travels. Today we arrived in San Francisco and it was actually 1.5 hours before we left Adelaide. Go figure we went back in time! Anyway the weather here is really very nice, have got shorts and t shirts on. We checked into out Hostel at about 12.00 pm and then we decided to catch the cable car to Fishermans warf. The tram follows the contours of the road which are bloody steep. I was waiting to see a car chase like on the movies, I wanted to see a car launch into the air as it comes flying down the streets.

The place we are staying in is really basic but is clean. It has free wireless internet and thanks to Shannon and his lap top we can sit in the room and type our blog. We have decided to eat at the Hostel tonight, the menu tonight is soup, lasagne and desert all for a grand total of $5. Can't go wrong really.

I think tomorrow we are going to hire some bikes and go for a bike ride over the Golden Gate Bridge and over to another couple of touristy spots.