Spending the night in the centre a major city after spending most of the month in isolated places was a bit of a shock!
We had a disturbed night with some very riotous party animals making merry in the street outside our room and then bringing it inside before they finally headed for bed. So we were quite glad to quit the hotel this morning and speed off south with our takeaway coffee in our hands. I’m glad it was a Saturday as the early morning streets of San Francisco were pretty quiet and we made it across the city without any dramas. Soon we hit Highway 1 again and the coast at the small town of Pacifica.
We’d been wondering whether the fog would plague us again today but other than some sea haze we had a clear view of the ocean all day today, phew! First stop was at Monterey where we parked at Fisherman’s Wharf to find some lunch. We had previously visited Monterey in 2005 but had only seen the Aquarium and the Cannery Row area so the wharf was new territory for us.
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| Fisherman’s Wharf |
It’s a very busy marina for hundreds of small to large watercraft and was also the chosen dock for a large cruise ship, the Celebrity Infinity. We watched boatloads of cruise passengers being shuttled across to the wharf for their day in Monterey. The wharf was your classic seaside pier, stacked to the brim with seafood cafes and restaurants and many galleries and gift shops catering to the tourists.
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| At Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterey. Neil has spied something in the water… |
As we walked along the marina Neil just happened to glance down and discover a couple of otters floating peacefully on their back at his feet – chalk up yet another species to our wildlife list for this holiday!
We did a little souvenir shopping and then bought some sandwiches and fruit to eat at the waters edge.
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| An otter enjoying a float! |
While we munched we watched a group of tourists approach in a few large kayaks and wondered why they were floating so quietly so close to shore – it became clear when we realised they were there to make friends with a number of small seals that were swimming in the bay in front of us.
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| Picnic lunch |
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| Seals watching the wildlife in the kayaks! |
From Monterey we carried on down Highway 1 and finally started tracks alng the Big Sur coastline. This road is considered one of the truly iconic American drives and it’s certainly very popular – especially on a pleasantly warm and sunny Saturday. Luckily there are lots of places to pull over and take photos of the fabulous coastline because almost every parking lot was full with a small queue of cars jockeying for a place. There are several State Parks on the route and they all had “Campground Full” and “Parking Lot Full” signs.
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| Neil at Bixby Bridge |
We stopped to admire the Bixby Bridge, which when it was built was a major engineering achievement Actually we crossed several bridges on the road that looked like they were major engineering achievements to me! The road really does teeter on the edge in many, many places and in one spot they have built a massive protective structure over the top of the road to keep it safe from rock slides. The colour of the water here was a brilliant aqua and it was teeming with waterbirds, we guessed there must be some huge schools of sealife under the waves to draw them to the spot.
Towards the end of the road we stopped in at a beach to see a large colony of elephant seals that were sunning themseves in the warm afternoon air. They weren’t a bit fazed but the large and ever changing crowd of tourists that lined the edge of the path to admire them and snap photos. Some of the more energetic ones were out in the water for a dip but most were just laying on the beach, occasionally dusting themselves with sand. It’s not a bad life!
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| Elephant Seals |
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| A face for radio…! |
At 4.30 we finally pulled into the small seaside town of Morro Bay, but for the previous 10 miles we’d been able to see the town’s major feature, a huge volcanic plug called Morro Rock. It dominates the coastline for miles around. Our hotel here is right on the bay and we had a lovely view of little boats bobbing in the water as well as kayakers and sailboarders doing their thing.
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| Morro Roack and the bay viewed from our balcony. Right over the water |
After a stroll around the small town we stopped in at the local Thai restaurant for a lovely couple of curries – I’d been craving a curry for days so I really enjoyed it! Then it was back to our verandah to sit and watch the sun go down… or really to stand and take lots of photos of the sun going down.
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| Neil busy with his camera |
Hopefully we will have a quieter night tonight, although up to a short time ago the seals ( or sea lions?) in the bay were making quite a racket with their barking. They’ve finally settled down now so this is probably a good time to finish!