Point Reyes Station is a single street of low wooden buildings in a green valley north of San Francisco, and it has more good food per metre than most cities. It sits on the Pacific side of Marin County, at the southern end of Tomales Bay, beside Highway 1, with dairy farms and cattle ranches stretching away toward the hills. The town has a bakery that draws queues on weekend mornings, a famous creamery that makes cheese from local milk, an old-fashioned feed store and a bookshop, and the pace is slow and friendly.
The land beneath it is anything but calm. The San Andreas Fault runs right through, along the long, straight trough of Tomales Bay, and in the 1906 earthquake the land on the western side moved about six metres north in a few seconds. A short walk at the Earthquake Trail near the park headquarters shows a fence that was pulled apart by the shift. The Point Reyes National Seashore, a wild peninsula of grassland, cliffs and beaches, lies to the west, and it holds a lighthouse built in 1870 on a rocky cliff, where whales can be seen from December to April. Tule elk graze on the grassy headland at Tomales Point, and in autumn the bulls bellow.
For riders, the roads here are among the best in the Bay Area. Highway 1 twists north from Mount Tamalpais through Stinson Beach and along the edge of Bolinas Lagoon, and the back roads over the hills, with redwood groves, fog and tight bends, are a favourite for local riders. Surfaces vary, with some patches that are bumpy or damp, and the fog can roll in without warning, dropping the temperature by ten degrees. Weekends bring heavy traffic from the city, so a weekday is better. Oysters from the farms along Tomales Bay are a local speciality, and several places serve them fresh.
The village has a small fuel station, but check hours, and the nearest larger supply is back in the towns toward San Rafael. Late summer and autumn often bring the clearest weather, while spring is green and flower-filled. Plan on a slow lunch.