July 8 Setting out on our coast to coast journey

You learn as you go!  The city of Chicago also burned in the 1800s. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 raged for 3 days killing about 300 people, burning streets and building, melting metal and destroyed roughly 6 sq Km leaving more than 100,000 residents homeless. For now I’ll leave you with two words - The Rookery! I’ll come back to that because we’re about to board the mighty Californian Zephyr eastward bound for Chicago, the first stage of our 4000 Km coast to coast train journey across the US. That was actually 5 days ago but who’s counting .....

We had to take a bus from downtown San Francisco to Emeryville (via the 14 Km Bay Bridge) where we would board the Californian Zephyr.

The train pulled into the station with great fanfare - the driver was hanging out the window yelling and waving!

It’s a mighty beast. Our carriage attendant, Machlin  was waiting to welcome us on board. Lovely guy who insisted on calling me Miss Candy throughout the trip - no idea?!



The popular observation car. It was always full - surprise surprise!

Dining car ok and the meals were fine - you could even have meals brought to your cabin.

24 hour coffee station.

We had a sleeper plus toilet and shower - and enough space for us AND our luggage.

July 8 Californian Earthquakes!!

A series of quakes around magnitude 7 on the San Andreas Fault but we’re pretty safe it seems as they were centred 100s km from where we are - and San Francisco is not on the San Andreas Fault.  But still we experienced a tiny thrill of fear and excitement. Walking down to the bus which would deposit us at our east-bound train this morning we passed a construction site where workers were being given an earthquake drill. Brought the awful, raw power of the earth home to us in a very immediate sense. 

Perched on the eastern rim of the Pacific Ring of Fire, earthquakes are not something new to San Francisco area. Since the 1906 Great San Francisco Earthquake (magnitude 7.8) which liquified many blocks of houses south of Market, there have been seven with magnitudes over 5.1. That biggie in 1906 destroyed over 80% of San Francisco, up to 3000 people died and fires raged for many days. The buildings on one side of Van Ness (the street) were deliberately demolished to act as a fire break - it worked. It was one of the deadliest earthquake in the history of the US. 

The city also has a horrendous history of fires. Remember the fire scene in ‘Gone with the Wind’? That was set around the time of some of the greatest fires in San Francisco history. The Coit Memorial Tower in the Telegraph Hill neighbourhood was dedicated to the volunteer firemen who died in San Francisco's five major fires of the mid 1800s. 

Today the city is still extremely fire-shy and there’s evidence of that everywhere. 

After the devastating fires around the 1850s all buildings had to have Standpipes to facilitate delivering water in case of fires. Some are quite elaborate.





So many building have external fire escapes.



Even on the water the Fire Department is very visible.

A fire hydrant on the waters edge!

July 7 A day by the Bay

Where to start? Food of course!

Today a stroll along The Embarcadero on the edge of the Bay. A glorious day taking in the sights from the towering supports of the Bay Bridge to brown pelicans cruising overhead to honey bees and humming birds feasting on the nectar of the many flowers along the water front. We checked out the San Francisco Ferry building and ‘food hall’ and then flopping down in a quiet restaurant for bubbles, fresh fruit juice and grilled peach panzanella for a very late lunch.  Our body clocks are totally out of whack so eating and sleeping are still completely random. 

The mighty expanse of Bay Bridge

Built in 1898 the San Francisco Ferry building survived both the 1906 and the 1989 earthquakes with little damage except the famous clock stopped!  Until the completion of the Bay and Golden Gate bridges in the 1930s, the Ferry Building was the second busiest transit terminal in the world, second only to London's Charing Cross Station. 

Today there is a marketplace and restaurants on the ground floor in former baggage handling area.

A spotty teenage Californian gull waiting on the make!

No significance just pretty

This little guy wasn’t lifting his head out of this tiny flower for anyone. Happy creature! Among the stattice. 

Poor shot but this is a wee humming bird (Anna’s humming bird Lindsay tells me). I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and thought it was a large insect whirring around these flowers - yes gorgeous yellow WA kangaroo paws! It was gone on a trice but it was quite a thrill to see the darling little thing.

Yummy food with a view

Perfect for lunch!

Yesterday we made the mistake of taking the Hop on-Hop off bus. It’s the 4 July holiday weekend here! and the city streets and ‘attractions’ are chockers. Say no more BUT I did get to have clam chowder on Fisherman’s Wharf and we then rode the quaint street cars back downtown. 

The view from Cafe 8 Fisherman’s Wharf.

Clam chowder. Sadly not as good as I remembered it. Very little seafood in it but it’s all about the experience right?!

Everyone is after the seafood along the Wharf

Many of the cafes had huge cauldrons of clam chowder bubbling and streaming outside. A real touristy thing.

Once the streets and wharf areas of San Francisco echoed with the clangour of the street cars and cable cars producing a kind of contrapuntal symphony in the growing metropolis. 

Historic Street cars follow two routes. The cars come from all over the US and other countries including a green rattler tram from Melbourne.

Market street street car. They are all different but rather gorgeous. Very retro.

The once busy street car routes went underground decades ago but they seem to have a terrific bus system plus trolley cars.

The iconic cable cars of San Francisco. This is at turning circle at the Market Street end of the Route which runs down to the Wharf area.

Couldn’t resist this shot. The guy is completely lost in a world of sound and rhythm he is creating from his various pots and pans.

And so this journey begins. Tomorrow we board the Californian Zephyr bound for Chicago but before we do ..........  

July 6 The architecture of the City by the Bay

This journey has a bit of an architectural theme both of the built and natural variety. San Francisco is new built relatively speaking and I love the sleekness of some of the Art Deco buildings but some of the newer buildings are quite breathtaking. I’ll leave you to look.

This unfinished edifice is quite fascinating, almost Escher like.

This to me is reminiscent of the Guggenheim in New York. Something that fascinated me was its curved escalators.

A Star Wars monolith.

To me this is a wee bit Rococo, Art Nouveau, rather flowery but lovely for all that

The Transamerica Pyramid is a 48-story futurist building which was the tallest building in San Francisco from its inception in 1972. Today it is the second-tallest ‘skyscraper’ on San Francisco’s skyline. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transamerica_Pyramid

Not a particularly attractive building.



When I looked at the decorative trimming on this building I was reminded of the Forbidden City in Beijing. I remember oohing and ahhing over the colour and design. Look closely at this and see the terrific colours.

Interesting neighbours!

This is a bold little creature. You’ve got to love it snapping at the heels of the lofty Transamerica Pyramid

Lines forever taking your eyes skywards

You’ve probably guessed what this is right? I love the detail. The colour? International Orange 

Quite magnificent

July 5 First stop San Francisco

We’re here - hoorah! but before I get started I want to fast rewind 24 years when a mere 3 days after I submitted my PhD thesis (after 8 years of full time study including BSc  - OMG what a gruelling albeit exciting time that was!) we packed a battered suitcase and backpack and I dragged my patient Lindsay (albeit with said patience weary thin) off to Paris - via San Francisco! After a couple of days walking up and down hills, getting lost in the early evening fog, pounding the sidewalk of Market, slurping chowder in the half dark on an almost deserted Fisherman’s Wharf, we both fell in love with this new world City of Love and vowed to return. In fact we met a man on our last night who sold us a rose and told us to sleep with it under our pillow to ensure we would return. Yeh I know we are hopeless romantics - but here we are! 

Walking down Second Street to Market, my eye was captured by this in the window of the LinkedIn building. it was a bit of a Tony Bennett moment for me. Oh no 😩 I feel a song coming on ..... ‘I left my heart in ....... tra la la ‘. There are hearts dotted around the city so it’s not just me right?!

July 4 We’re off on our 2019 journey

Trains and boats and planes (and buses) .... I feel a song coming on ... tra la la. Across the plains and mountains of both USA and Canada (including Newfoundland, callooh callay), nosing into the deep fiords of Greenland and Svalbard, getting up close to icebergs and calving glaciers, hopefully spotting some walruses (my personal favourite), dogsledding and hiking on the tundra and exploring some of the magical national parks of Iceland where elves and the Hidden Folk dwell. Are we ready? You bet!

Tales from a balcony garden

Our lovely starry nights Tea tree which had to go.

The ax man!

This is the reason. In case you don't know what you're looking at this is the hose through the garden box for the irrigation. The root has completely strangled it. Ah the pressure to survive. Amazing really.

OMG it's gone - except for the stump and the roots throughout the entire garden. Lindsay did an awesome job.

Our rescued passion fruit vines. I pruned and planted and gave them some food and left them to it. They are still going! The straggly stuff in the front is coriander just coming up from harvested seeds

That was our Mexican orange bush - no stopping this man!

A little touch of colour which hasn't stopped blooming all year,  I love it.

Some of the garden beds of the Southbank community garden part of the larger Sustainability groups work. Neighbours are harvesting vege for their table from here already.  Perfect.

When we bought our Southbank eyrie it had to fill just a few criteria. It had to have a pool, parking, good security and importantly a garden space.  It is not flash, but it’s perfect for us. Over the years we’ve grown lots of quite diverse things – kumquats which ended up in brandy and marmalade, limes and lemons, figs enough for jam and eating, tomatoes, lemon grass and lots of herbs. Our balcony orchard has grown to include a couple of plum trees and two rescued passionfruit vines. Both the front and side garden beds are now lying partially dormant, but with a gut full of ripe kitchen compost dug in waiting for our return in Spring when we’ll plant loads of vegies – we’re quite excited! I’ve dried loads of herbs to use over winter. What am I saying?! We’re not going to be here.  

The front terrace has always been planted with a mind to creating a green space, a barrier to the rest of the world – not quite when there are 20 floors of apartments gazing down at us, but it feels a little private. In that garden were a couple of ‘trees’ including a lovely tea tree – which got too big and started escaping through the fence and down into the drains. Sacre bleu! My garden elf got rid of that and other exuberant bushes so we are ready to start again. 

Our families of birds were at first rather nonplussed at the change in their space, but I think we’ve been forgiven for taking out one of their favourite hidey holes.  They’ve discovered other activities to keep them amused and doing what birds do like exploring the dirt, foraging and such like. It’s a birds’ life!