The Central Coast

We left LA around 10am on Saturday with no real plans except we were going to drive up Highway 1 and were sleeping in San Luis Obispo. We drove through the really flash part of Beverley Hills on Sunset and kept going until we hit Hwy 1. Our first stop was Malibu. The beaches around LA are huge! We don't know if there ever were dunes on the beaches but there aren't now and there is like 200m of sand between the road and the water. We kept heading north driving along the coast and only getting lost a couple of times until we made it to Santa Barbara.

Malibu Beach and Car Park

Self Portrait

Malibu Beach

Santa Barbara was a breath of fresh air compared to LA. LA was a big dirty city (although it did have its attractions) but Santa Barbara was built around a Spanish mission and is a lot smaller. The buildings in the centre of town are all whitewashed and the parks are kept beautifully. We had lunch at a great veg-friendly place called the Natural Cafe and then spent an hour wandering around town. The town hall has a climbable tower which gives a great view over the town from the mountains, which reminded us of the Flinders Ranges in SA, to the Pacific Ocean - just stunning. On recommendation from the tourist office in SB we took a detour off the 1 to the 154 through the hills into wine country. The vines are all dormant but the lakes and hills were cool.

Town Hall

Plaza in Santa Barbara

Town Hall

Gardens at Town Hall

View into the Belltower

Mountains

More Mountains

Ocean

On the Drive to SLO

Dam on the way to SLO

We made it into SLO around 5.30 and had a quiet night in the hotel, which was a pleasant surprise. We only paid $40 for the room so we were a little concerned about it but it was clean and totally ok. The next day we woke up to grey skies and a cool breeze so we decided to take it easy for the day. Around 11 we walked into town, grabbing a lunch from a mediterranian place with great coffee and tea! Next we headed to an Internet cafe to do some blogging, forgetting the camera cable. Lawrie headed back to get it, 10-15 minutes each way, making it back in time to work out USB devices were disabled! We walked to the mission, which showcased some great native american artifacts, coupled with pretty gardens and a beautiful L shaped church. After this we walked along the towns river, very pretty, to Downtown Brew. We tried their beers downstairs, their IPA was great, as expected for the USA.

The creek downtown

The Mission

Gardens in the Mission

The creek

Gross Gum Wall

Next we continued to SLO brew, grabbing a tasting rack before the game of shuttle caught Lawries eye. Kinda like curling crossed with bowls on a sand lubes course. This turned out to be fun! Lawrie ordered the table just before an old mate, Jason tried to get it, given his disappointment and our lack of knowledge on the game subject, we invited him to play. Over the next few games, beers, we learnt how to play and met Brent at the same time. We spent the rest of the night learning about young American culture and seeing a few local bars! It was a great night however the obsession with shots made us a little slower he next day!

Shuttle Board

With Brent and Jason

This is when things started to get messy...

We left SLO around 9.30 on Monday and stopped at Macca's in Morro Bay for some hangover food. We had a look at Morro rock and saw our first wild squirrels. We continued up the coast on Hwy 1, seeing the coast get more and more wild as we made our way through Big Sur. There were a number of waterfalls along the side of the road that were racing due to the snow melting on the mountains above. We followed some of the walking trails and found some great scenery.

Squirrel at Morro Rock

Morro Rock

Morro Rock

Seals on our way up the coast

Really big seal

The start of the Big Sur Drive

Waterfall

Waterfall

One of the many walking trails

View into the mountains

Road winding around the hills above the ocean

Some amazing scenery

Our hire car

Cool looking bridge

Cool looking bridge

Some wild surf

Bridge crossing an inlet

Looking into the mountains

One of the walks we did

Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park - complete with waterfall onto
the beach

The wildflowers were just starting to bloom

Purple Sand at Big Sur Beach

The next morning we got up early and drove back to SLO because Lawrie had left his passport in the hotel room. Five hours later we were back in Monterey and we spent the afternoon at the aquarium. The Monterey aquarium is located in the last sardine cannery to close on Cannery Row (made famous by John Steinbeck) and is right on Monterey Bay. They had rescued sea otters on display - they were absolutely fascinating and we watched them for around 30 minutes. We ran out of time but luckily we got two days for the price of one so we went back the next day and saw the rest of the exhibits including a great seahorse exhibit and some cool jellyfish.

Awesome Sea Otters

Simulated wave - it fills tidal pools outside

Tidal Pools

Jellyfish

Turtle

We travelled about 6 miles south down to Carmel where we had lunch at a great little Greek place. Carmel is a cute/posh seaside town so it has heaps of galleries, jewellery stores and the nicest beach we've seen here so far. Later in the afternoon we went further south to Point Lobos, which is home to harbor seals and sea lions. We saw a few harbor seals but the sea lions were too far away. Late afternoon produces some magical light so we got some pretty great photos.

Carmel Beach

View into Ocean at Point Lobos

Another View

Another View

Lawrie in a cool looking tree

Walking Path

The light was amazing

We had planned to spend the next morning at the 1902 boardwalk amusement park in Santa Cruz but we'd forgotten that here is only just coming out of winter so the rides weren't open. We kept heading north through the redwood forest to Oakland and Berkeley, where we had awesome lunch before driving over the Golden Gate bridge to San Francisco

Santa Cruz Boardwalk

Santa Cruz Boardwalk

Pizza in Berkeley