Today was our last full day in Santa Cruz and we both woke up suffering with our sunburn, plus I had the beginnings of a cold - we can feel your pity for us poor travellers!

We found out on Facebook this morning about the birth of our new niece, Rosie Bailey - congratulations Lee and Claire! So Laura went off to find a phone, without much luck.

Eventually we headed down to the Boardwalk again, this time to cath the Big Trees and Pacific train to see the giant redwoods. The train took us across the river and through Henry Cowell Redwood State Park and as we'd already experienced on these kind of touristy things the conductor/guide was excellent. He was full of information about the town, river and trees en route.

We arrived at a small village called Roaring Camp and we had a quick look around, although there wasn't much to see.

There didn't seem to be any houses and it was just a tiny place set up for tourists getting off the train next to the park - there was a gift shop, burger place, restrooms...and that was about it! Anyway, onto the trees...

We headed into the park and were amazed by the sheer height of the redwoods. The tops of lots of them were out of sight and the trunks were as wide as houses! Some had been damaged by fire over the years and you could stand in the hollowed out base of the trunks - a good photo op! (If we can ever get them on, no USB ports have been spotted for a while now, watch this space!) We also saw part of a tree that was 2200 years old - incredible!

On the way back to Santa Cruz, the guide told us that lots of the trees had been cut down by loggers in Victorian times, but had already grown back to an enormous height as they re-grow themselves without needing to be replanted.

Back at the hostel, we decided to have a night in feeling sorry for ourselves because of our life-threatening ailments (!) and we packed for our bus journey. A girl who we'd first seen at the Green Tortoise hostel was staying at our place and we chatted to her for a bit - apparently our next stop, Monterey, is 'so cold it chills your bones!'

Hmm...sounds nice...we'll see!