The coastal fog was never far away: not so much bad weather as the interaction between cool air off the ocean meeting warmer air near the land, and common throughout the summer. Next up was Bixby Bridge. Our guidebook says it is one of the world's largest single-span bridges, built in 1932 by prisoners eager to reduce their sentences!
Our next stop was at Andrew Molera State Park. The obvious question was "who was Andrew Molera?" - the answer to which is that he was apparently the farmer who first planted artichokes in California. We saw lots of fields of artichokes yesterday on our way down from SF, so it's good to know that the person responsible has been immortalised with a State Park in his name. Having parked up, we followed the mile-long trail towards the beach. At the picture below shows, there was a bit of a problem ...
The stream was thigh-deep (for adults) and fast-running. Even with the added bonus of being serenaded by a random guitar-player we acknowledged we weren't prepared (wearing jeans, no towels) so took a different path and walked through the meadows instead. Next up was the Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, and coastal Redwood trees. Sure, these weren't the Giant Redwoods of northern California, but they were majestic nonetheless.
Tom stood inside the hollowed-out trunk of this tree, to give some idea of scale.
Back in the car, the journey continued to give us the most amazing views. At times, the road narrowed; there were hairpin bends where the traffic slowed to walking pace. Being on the passenger side - and therefore closest to the ocean - it occasionally made me feel a little dizzy, especially on the stretches where we were high up on the cliffs with the fog rolling in.
Eventually, the Big Sur ended, and the coast road became flatter and straighter. It still had sights to reveal, however, as we pulled off at Point Piedras Blancas. This stretch of beach is home to a great colony of elephant seals. At this time of year the residents are either 1-2 year old juveniles, or else females readying themselves for their big ocean migration to feed. The males have already left for their migration. There's lots more information here: http://www.elephantseal.org/
There were volunteer guides to chat to, so we established that this beach was popular because (a) there is still exposed sand even at high tide and (b) there are rocky headlands protecting it from the prevailing north-westerly winds. Some of the seals had started moulting; the young ones were starting to spar with each other, while others just lazed around flipping sand onto their bodies to keep cool. This one even waved goodbye to us.
After checking into our hotel we stopped at Moonstone Beach early evening to watch the waves once more. I could easily have stayed to watch the sun go down, but it was time to head off and find dinner ...
No comments:
Post a Comment