Kev's Super Happy Travel Blog

I visited Alcatraz today. Which I was a bit aprehensive about doing to be honest, because I thought I would only be able to speak in a Sean Connery accent whenever I was on 'The Rock'. Apart from one minor slip I was okay though...

There are trips over to Alcatraz from one of the ports on the bay. They basically dump you on the island and let you look around as you want, which is nice; I hate getting shepherded around in organised tours. They have an audio tour of the cell blocks available; you bung on some headphones and an ex-guard talks you through the cell block area. It's quite well done.

You get a great view of the bay from the island. Luckily the weather was a bit better today so I got some half decent pictures...

A good trip all in all.

After visiting Aquatic Park and Fisherman's (make it so Mr.) Wharf I decided to wander down to the Golden Gate Bridge and walk over it. I made this decision before considering the following things:

• How far it was
  
• The weather
  

It turns out these were pertinent considerations. Given that it was about and hour's walk in the rain. However I did get to see the bridge on the way from a few good locations. And it is impressive, even in the crappy weather.

When I got on the bridge I realised that the weather had become even more 'king pertinent. I pretty quickly realised after a large spray of water up the bum that I was walking across the Golden Gate Bridge in the middle of a class 4 storm. This is not a good idea for several reasons:

• The rain
  
• The wind
  
• Even more wind
  
• Lots and lots of bloody wind really near a quite small barrier and a 'king big drop. (The suicide prevention signs they have on the bridge point out that a drop from the bridge is going to definitely kill you. Why would you point this out to a potential jumper? Won't that encourage them?)
  

Still the weather did make it kind of exhilarating. The fear of death does that you know.

I did meet a couple of fellow English people on the bridge. Our conversation was typically English, i.e. it only involved lying about the weather:

Me: "Lovely day"
Him: "I think it's clearing up"

It really started raining in the middle of the bridge which kinda scuppered the great views and great photos I was hoping for:

But I eventually made it to the otherside.

I was hoping for a bar. One of the biggest tourist attractions in the world. You'd think there would be a pub or a restaurant or something at both sides of the bridge. But nooooo... Not a sodding thing. So I got a bus back and hit a rather nice bar called Perry's in the city centre where I watched the American Football, drank several pints of Sam Adam's lager, (which isn't a lager by the way) ate some quality chicken wings and chatted to the barman and another nice chap who appeared to be a gay version of Will Ferrell.

Aquatic park is sort of a marina type thing to the north of San Francisco. Not much more than a few boats, a good view of 'The Rock' and a closed museum.

Still I did get to see some nutters in the water. Swimming. In the wind and rain. At 9:30AM.

The more observant amongst you will have recognised that I used the time 9:30AM there. This is not normally a time when I'm awake. And if I am I'm certainly not able to take photographs or operate complicated machinery. However a combination of jet lag and not getting to sleep before 4AM since mid-December seems to have reset my body clock nicely; I was up at 8AM, fresh as a 'king daisy.