AVOIDANCE 101 a.k.a 101 AVOIDANCE

DAY 3

WEDNESDAY 6 APRIL 2016

OXNARD – SANTA BARBARA

1040 - 1800

76.53 km (47.55 miles)

Av. Speed: 16.4 km/h (10.2 mph)

Max Speed: 42.9 km/h (26.6 mph)

Time on Bike: 4h 39m 34s

I got myself out of the Flamingo in good time with the stated intention of getting to Santa Barbara.

Oxnard Public Library was the first stop off for a spot of internet time, post another blog entry, that sort of thing.

More importantly I had decided to lose some weight off the rig and it was time to post some items home.

Having used the US postal service previously in 2004, I had no doubts about reliability – cost on the other hand….

Anyway, US$95 later, my little package was on its way back to Sydney from Oxnard and already the rig was thanking me for it.

My mission for the day from this point was to get to Santa Barbara with as minimal contact with Highway 101 as possible.

101 is not an Interstate, and therefore not an illegal for bicycles.

In terms of safety and enjoyment however, this is another matter.

The good news was that apparently it was possible - by way of an intricate network of bicycle paths that have been provided to enable cyclists to negotiate the northward PCH route.

It wasn’t necessarily a piece of pie, but it was possible as I understood it.

I must admit that I have never attempted to ride from one city to another entirely using a bicycle path network so that in itself promised some kind of adventure.

The first section of the ride I had completed the previous evening as I attempted to find a camp in the fading light but found myself stopping a second time on the way back through to take a piss on the “CLOSED” sign that had undone me so.

Revenge can be sweet sometimes.

I perhaps had not quite appreciated that the good sized centre of Ventura was as close as it was. I was there in no time but got lost for the first time by missing the poorly marked turnoff which I needed to take to pick up the cycle path.

Enquiring at the nearby gas station at the 101 junction got me nowhere (as it has done several times so far…no one seems to know ANYTHING around here!!)

Still, I back-tracked a half-mile or so and managed to connect with the sign I had missed and was back on track at least temporarily.

The southern head of the cycle way was in the midst of a new quayside housing development (think Pleasantville with shiny boats in the garage) which I found a little bizarre but as the signs were telling me it was the way to go, so who was I to argue?

Within 5 minutes or so, I was off the road and onto the beachfront path which runs immediately in front of the main downtown area of Ventura.

The path is a beauty and it completely relieves the pressure of having to deal with traffic – for the best part of 5 miles, no less.

WATCH ME RIDE THE VENTURA CYCLE PATH!!

I made an obligatory lunch stop at the Beach Taco House for some local delicacies; a couple of fresh fish tacos and a spicy rice milk iced tea went down an absolute treat.

BEACH HOUSE TACOS, VENTURA BEACHFRONT

After mopping up the mess I had made with the tacos (coleslaw and chipotle sauce absolutely everywhere), I continued, hitting the serious section of the bicycle path within 30 minutes.

This is about a 10 mile designated construct that runs directly adjacent to 101 on the right and the Pacific Ocean on the left – you are no more than 20 metres from either for the full extent of the path.

Fabulous riding indeed!

And as you come off at the northern end, the path does actually re-join the road as Highway 1 for about another 10 miles, however traffic is low and the ocean vista to the immediate left is only interrupted by the occasional Amtrak train running along right next to the road and the incessant hum of 101 just over the embankment.

Everything I would have said was hunky dory until the exit at Rincon Park and this is where things started to get just a little fucked up.

To my dismay, the next direction I followed led me directly onto 101, albeit for a very short period until the next freeway exit.

It was here I came across the first bogus signing which ended me up in a construction zone with no way through.

Consulting the “construction guys” at least gave me a direction to follow, although their assertion that taking “Via Real” all the way into Santa Barbara proved to be a lot of bull.

From this point, I probably got lost a minimum of 10 times and although I remained certain that I was actually heading in the right direction at all times, the way through proved to be entirely convoluted and counter-intuitive.

To the credit of all locals that I consulted during the next 2-3 hours, almost all of them gave the right directions which at least got me to the next dead-end or inadequate signage.

Miraculously I made it to an RV Park I had earmarked as a possible camping spot which had come up somewhere on the map – there was no way in the world I could have located it by myself – but was told by the manager on arrival that camping was actually not possible, not there, or anywhere in Santa Barbara apparently.

Fabulous.

Said manager did however give me forward directions, which was softened by the fact that I was apparently less than a mile from downtown Santa Barbara.

With the hour now closer to 7 pm than 6 pm, I initially found the tourist information centre closed, of course, but was able to interpret the provided map sufficiently enough to find the main street (State St) and that most golden of institutions, the public library.

Although I had visited Santa Barbara more than once 12 years previously, I had scant memories of the town and its set up, although did recognise the Amtrak station when I saw it and did recall a nearby hostel that I seemed to remember staying at.

The library, I felt would provide all I needed to know when I found it.

And it did.

I located 2 hostels in the downtown area and re-mounted my steed to go and track them down. (The HI hostel I stayed at in 2004 is apparently no longer, BTW….)

If they had an available room, the first hostel on the list is the one I decided I was going to stay at before I even got there.

“The Wayfarer” looked by far the superior of what was on offer and it was also in a much closer location.

And so it came to be for the next 2 nights.