Mendocino's Giant Red Woods and Wines of the Anderson Valley

Friday, 8 April 2016 

Got up early to go to Montgomery Woods where a stand of huge, ancient redwoods had been preserved.  The road to the woods took us up through some windy mountain roads with the most beautiful scenery.  

At one point we stopped to take in the views, which were gorgeous. When we got out of the car the air was heavily perfumed from the flowering trees which dotted the countryside. 

A few kilometres down the road we entered the forest of the giant redwoods.  They were huge, but even when you’re there, you need to be next to them to get the sense of just how big they really are. 

Trevor took some video starting at the top of the tree down, down, down, down to little me at the bottom – very spectacular.  As the place was a bit off the beaten track we more or less had the place to ourselves – it was really special.

After the redwoods we headed down to the coast to the town of Mendocino, a quaint little village that looks a bit like New England. The coast was beautiful, especially with all the wild flowers. Had some lunch and then onto a Botanical gardens just north of Mendocino where there were a lot of rhododendrons out in flower. The gardens are ok, but we’re really quite spoilt having the botanic gardens in Melbourne, so these were a bit lacklustre compared to what we’re used to.

Our original plan was to travel down the coast from Mendocino to Jenner and then back up the Russian River valley to home.  But as usual, the wine was calling us!  Just down the coast from Mendocino the road to the Anderson Valley came up and Trevor said, I’d rather try and check out the wine from this region as its regarded as one of the best Pinot Noir regions in the whole of California.  It was getting late in the day and we thought we might have been too late by then but there were still some wineries open, so we went for a tasting and bought some lovely wine.

The other benefit of heading inland down from Mendocino was that the road along the Navarro river wound its way through an old redwood forest which was just stunning. After the redwoods the valley opened up and the place was full of vineyards.  We stopped at the Navarro winery and had a great tasting. We bought some wine for our wine consumption while we’re here (some beautiful Gewurztraminer and Pinot Noir).  We also bought some great sheep and goats cheese to snack on with our wine – it’s a hard life