yeah, these aren’t getting any better, are they?

So, the view from the hostel, or the hostel area, is still worth the walk. There’s a network of paths & steps to get down from the headland, plus some roads if you’re into that sort of thing; I wandered down a different way to how I’d come up, just to check it out, and found various former gun emplacements, many very steep stairs, and a sign telling you not to use them at night. With no explanation as to why.

• strange lights and disappearances?
• muggers?
• homeless folks who need their beauty sleep?
• chupathingy?

As a start to tourism, I headed for a pier with various historic looking boats, on the grounds that it’s probably a tourist attraction.

Turned out to be Hyde Street Pier, part of the Historic Maritime Area, and as luck would have it they were having a free day, so I wandered around the steel-hulled sailing ship Balclutha & the sidewheeler Eureka.

Balclutha had been through a few trade incarnations over it’s life, so they had the historical interpretation stuff in the upper hold divided into sections for those trades. They also had the Captain’s cabin rigged as it would have been in port, with all the nice furniture and delicate lamps brought out of storage.

Apparently the papers were signed after said Captain’s wife, who’d been in on the negotiation and was an active part in them, confirmed that a deckhouse was still there, as she wanted a spot above deck where she could do crafts & keep watch on the ship.

Eureka started life under a different name, and was completely rebuilt after military service because of the strain put on it. Too many heavy cargos.

It did the cross-bay trip with cars and passengers, and had a restaurant on board. And it’s a double ender, which is why they went with side wheels.

According to the plaque, the issue with the sort of engine it has is that if the piston stops at the top or bottom of the stroke, steam pressure won’t get it started again. To get around this, they’d turn the paddlewheel manually through an access hatch, using a big damn lever they kept there for the purpose, and move the piston that way, ideally before they hit the dock.

Coit Tower was the second tourist thing.
It’s … up a ways, and it was a hot day, so I took advantage of some convenient steps to take a breather & enjoy the shade and the view.

And, apparently, the Coyotes.

There’s a fair bit of view.

And the tower, which I’m told only coincidentally resembles a fire hose nozzle.
On a memorial to a woman who was famous for how much she loved firefighting & fire companies.
Riiiiight.

 

In the car park, Columbus stares at Alcatraz.

There’s an elevator to go up the tower, but they warned me at the hostel about the giant queue.
Said queue didn’t look too bad, but then, after a few minutes, I discovered that this was only the outside portion; The queue inside the building would be another 45 minutes or so.

I noped out at that point.

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Every time I see this place, I misread the sign as saying ‘Chunder’.