The best parts of California’s Highway 1 are a secret to most of us

For months now I’ve had much the same conversation. A proposed road trip along California’s Highway 1 sparks informed and passionate discussion. Why? Because almost everyone’s done it. A car journey between LA and San Francisco is a mandatory notch in every Australian traveller’s belt, it seems.

Mendocino is the biggest town on the California coast north of San Francisco.Credit: Getty Images

“But what about north of San Francisco?” I’ve asked, over and over. Well, it seems Highway 1 must come to a grinding halt at the Golden Gate Bridge, as no one I’ve spoken to has been there. But I see on the map that Highway 1 keeps running north for another 300 kilometres.

So I fly to San Francisco, ignore the coast road south and aim north instead. The traffic’s heavy on the freeway past the Golden Gate Bridge (US-101), but I take a hard left towards Highway 1 and no one follows.

I drive along a coastline of quiet fishing and surfing towns, like Bolinas, that don’t even exist. Locals steal the turn-off signs as fast as anyone can put them up, and oddly, the town doesn’t even appear on some maps. But it’s real and it’s stunning, tucked between state forests and surf beaches where a lagoon empties to the sea.

Its main street hosts Smiley’s Saloon, said to have opened in 1851 and with a strong claim to be the oldest continuously run saloon on America’s west coast. It also offers rooms close to the beach and is home to the kind of locals who’ll only give away secrets if you’re prepared to share a drink or three with them.

I keep cruising and after about 90 kilometres I hit the coast again in the spot where Russians set up the region’s first non-Indigenous settlement, near a town called Jenner. I watch seals play hide-and-seek with a kayaker on the Russian River, right where it empties into the Pacific, before driving further north for a sunset at Timber Cove Resort, watching whales from the restaurant.

The road north from here is where you’ll find the most gravity-defying sections of the highway, teetering on the edge of granite cliffs above bays of sea stacks. There are villages on this road with funny names like Elk which still feel unexplored and full of possibility. There’s the odd fancy place popping up, but not much tourism; mostly you’ll meet locals shocked to hear an Australian accent.

Then I hit Mendocino, the biggest town on the California coast north of San Francisco (if it looks familiar, you must have watched the odd episode of that ’80s TV staple, Murder She Wrote). It’s a quaint collection of 19th century bars, art galleries and earthy cafes, its main street looking down on a black-sand bay. Beyond the beach and the surfers a grey whale breaches, keeping a street full of strangers pointing at the sea.

I follow a trail along cliff edges which look down on colonies of seals. Ahead of me, the coast rises from the Pacific like a fortress, until the fog rolls in and covers it; each day is a weather lottery.

I track a little further north, past a range that’s home to mountain lions. Beyond lies the Lost Coast, so called because it was decided the terrain was too rugged to build a major road through. As a result, many towns are isolated.

And so I drive south-east instead, from Mendocino to Anderson Valley on a winding road through pretty forest where centuries-old redwoods stand by the roadside. Familiar to wine lovers for its award-winning pinot noirs, Anderson Valley receives fewer visitors than almost any other Californian wine region. There are 60 or so wineries amid a landscape of natural hot springs, with only the occasional farmer on a tractor to slow the journey.

I stop in at wineries with no other visitors and drink chardonnay and pinot noir with the winemakers who grew the grapes.

CRAIG TANSLEY

Anderson Valley fringes Sonoma, another relative secret despite the fact it produces some of the US’s most respected wines, borders America’s most visited wine region, Napa Valley, and is barely an hour’s drive north of San Francisco.

I’m lost here almost immediately down narrow country roads. Sonoma is almost twice the size of Napa Valley, so there are nooks and crannies only a few locals know about. I stop in at wineries with no other visitors and drink chardonnay and pinot noir with the winemakers who grew the grapes.

The main town of the region, Healdsburg, is full of fancy restaurants, boutiques, cocktail bars and tasting rooms built around an historic town plaza. I spend a night but am happy to move on the next morning just to leave any notion of a crowd behind me.

The open road takes me back through quiet “alternative” communities built beside the Russian River, in between giant redwoods, until I meet up again with Highway 1 at the coast. While nearly 300 million people a year visit California, in these forgotten parts it feels like only a handful.

The author travelled with assistance from Visit California; visitcalifornia.com.

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