Thursday 4th June - Squirrels and Pohutukawas

We bid farewell to Hal and Cathy this morning and once again loaded up the car. We had been advised by Hal, who knows this coast well, to stay at a hotel in a place called Cambria - The FogCatcher Inn - more of that later.

Yet again we travelled down Hwy 101. I had hoped we would be going along the magnificent coastal road - Highway 1 the ‘Big Sur’ - but apparently that road is a rather a dodgy drive with the road twisting and turning alongside high cliffs with deep vertical drops to the sea below. And as Val was doing all the driving the decision was hers. Also it would have taken us far too long to reach our destination because of the time it would have taken. I wasn’t too disappointed as we did drive through lovely country scenery. As yesterday, we passed mile after mile of beautifully neat cultivated fields - well not fields as we in the UK know them, they are vast! And very long goods train carriages were stationery alongside some of them waiting to be loaded with fresh fruit and vegetables to get them to the shops as quickly as possible. We also passed a very big oil field (or maybe natural gas) with the ‘nodding donkeys’ nodding furiously.

On leaving the highway we headed west towards the coast and drove through many wineries - we stopped at one for a ‘tasting’ - although Dorothy was the only one who did.

We duly arrived at the popular holiday town of Cambria where we are staying at The FogCatcher Inn, Moonstone Beach:

http://www.fogcatcherinn.com/

Our block of 3 rooms, we're in the middle with the Pohutukawa tree outside

It is the most charming hotel - and for Kiwi friends and rellies of Terry who read this there is a Pohutukawa tree growing right outside our door. And for the non-Kiwi’s reading this, this tree is a native NZ tree and is known as The New Zealand Christmas Tree because it has brilliant red flowers at Christmastime. Terry is stunned to see one here as she thought they only grew in New Zealand. Just goes to show - California can do anything!

Dorothy, Val and I had a swim followed by a session in the hot tub. Very nice after a long journey.

There was a boardwalk along the coast bordered by wild flowers: We took a long walk and it was just beautiful. Terry was delighted to see the little ground squirrels - they were very tame and almost begging for food. I was not too keen - I have many grey squirrels in my garden at home and consider them vermin, much to Terry’s disgust!

The coast here in Cambria is beautiful. Again we searched for sea otters but again they must have known we were coming because they went into hiding. We were consoled by seeing lots more seals then - lo and behold - we saw a lot of hump backed whales out at sea, migrating north. As in Alaska, they were too far away to photograph but their spouts could not be missed.

We had a very nice dinner at a local fish speciality restaurant, which made a lovely end to a lovely day.