Activity Summary
Monday 20th March - Day 200 (continued)
Drive to Monterey
Redwood Grove
Moss Landing / Elkhorn Slough State Marine Conservation Area - sea otters & harbour seals
Tuesday 21st March - Day 201
Monterey pier & Old Fisherman's wharf
Monterey coastal walk & town
Carmel-By-The-Sea
Route 1 partial road trip to Big Sur
Wednesday 22nd March - Day 202
Drive to Morro Bay
Elephant Seal vista point (Route 1)
Morro Bay evening walk
Thursday 23rd March - Day 203
Drive to Santa Barbara
Pismo beach & pier
Explore Santa Barbara
Summary
Monterey
Nice small town and has so many sea otters! Loved it for the latter.
Carmel-By-The-Sea
So bougie where the elite clearly shop designer, drink coffee and wine taste as pass times. Lovely architecture and enjoyed the short stop over.
Morro Bay
Not a whole lot here but it was a good stopover point for us on our way down the coast. Probably should have frequented one of the many seafood joints but it was pretty early on in the US road trip.
Santa Barbara
Another much nicer town/city on the Cali coast. Like a much larger Carmel and appeared to be a nice place to relax in the evening.
Accommodation
Monterey - Bayside Inn
Number of nights - 2
Price per night per person - £25
It was our first stay at an American motel and it was pretty decent. Pretty old style decor but a lot of space, microwave, fridge and heater made for everything we needed to live as cheaply as possible. Nice big super king size bed was like being back at home again.
Parking off road in the motel ‘complex’ is also reassuring for the safety of the car.
All in all, big fans of the motel.
Morro Bay - Sandpiper Inn
Number of nights - 1
Price per night per person - £30
Standard decent motel experience.
Santa Barbara - Sunset Motel
Number of nights - 1
Price per night per person - £46
Standard decent motel experience.
Diary
[Continued]
It was a little busy getting out of San Fran but the perks of leaving the city in the middle of a school day rather than rush hour meant it was all relatively calm. Thanks to the driving and lessons from Anuj, Luke had a pretty good idea of the rules of the road so all that was left was getting used to the size of the Nissan Altima (little wider than his previous cars) and driving on the right hand side of the road. Driving an automatic made the concentration on the right hand side a piece of cake really.
We stopped off at the Berkeley Mcds for lunch given it was easy. In Luke’s personal opinion, the nugs in the UK smash the US and the burgers are too greasy. The smallest size of the drinks is a UK large which is absolutely hideous so when caving in to laziness we have avoided the ridiculous meal plan.
Our timing to the US for the national parks on our list (Grand Canyon, Antelope, Monument, Bryce, Zion, Sequoia & Yosemite) would probably considered a ‘risky biscuit’ as the latter parks have more back country roads that are deep in snow over winter and therefore closed. California for the last month had been experiencing significant adverse weather against expectation dubbed ‘atmospheric rivers’ that, thankfully, has officially brought Cali out of a significant period of drought. Being wholly selfish however, the rains and snow could have put a big ol dampner on our holibobs. The first confirmed casualty was Sequoia where significant road slips meant it would not be open till mid May. No General Sherman redwood hugging for us.
Down the coast for the time being was expected to be alright however. Warnings of Monterey floods and bad weather were circulating but ultimately there was no real trouble.
To make up for the lack of Sequoian redwoods Nicola found a place on the way down to Monterey where our motel was called Redwood Grove which offered a very nice short walk around some giant redwoods that were about 1,500 years old.
Nicola had an absolute whale of a time and had a good old hug with one. They are feckin impressive.
Nicola would have liked to have gone around again but we were short on daylight hours for Luke’s novice US driving and still had to drive a fair way. For this reason we didn’t stop at Santa Cruz on the way down but the redwood’s were well worth missing the city (especially as we will find we don’t really like the US cities at all).
A short drive away from Monterey is a short nubbin of land that feeds into the Elkhorn Slough State Marine Conservation Area called Moss Landing. Nicola had read there were potentially sea otters visible from this point. In all our time together, where there has been the potential of seeing wild otters (Scotland & Singapore to name a few places) we have been greatly disappointed in our failed quest. So we had approached this viewpoint with a lot of cynicism, especially since it was cloudy, grey and cold.
There were a ton of harbour seals chilling not too far away from the peninsular so we already had scored in wildlife sightings, although our NZ experiences has made us spoiled and now do not consider seals to be hype material. Once parked up we walked the short way to the water's edge, Nicola more or less running as Luke dealt with the car, which in turn made Luke run when Nicola let out a shriek of excitement when she spotted an otter for fear he would miss his opportunity.
Where we thought we would get none, there were about 5 otters diving, eating and floating in the rocky channel that protected them from the sea. Our first experience seeing otters and it was incredible. Nicola would have spent hours there (rather than the 20/30 minutes) had it not been so cutting with wind. But we left very happy.
Once in Monterey we parked up and checked into our first all American motel, Bayside Inn. The outside looked like the stuff of movies but in all honesty portrayed in a wholly unjustly negative light. Motels are great for off street parking and the rooms tend to be spacious, comfortable and have a fridge and microwave. Conversely hostels have limited or no parking meaning that cars are at the mercy of people on the street, definitely are not spacious and comfortable and the kitchens are usually in such a state that cooking actually doesn’t appeal at all. Motels are certainly the more relaxing way to travel.
We got settled and wound down for the evening with a wholesome microwave sweet potato and tuna dinner (these will get old pretty quickly).
We were staying in Monterey for 2 nights which meant we could get settled after the first days driving and not have to worry about packing up or leaving stuff in the car (although everything fit in the boot and this was completely inaccessible from the back seats making thievery all the more unlikely).
We drove over to Monterey pier first, parked up on a residential street that had no limitations on parking with a short walk over to the spot (good tip to avoid paying extornatie fees for being near tourist attractions if you don’t mind walking, as long as the road seems kosher).
The Monterey pier & Old Fisherman's wharf were not hustling as bustling at all. There was a storm that had hit the area which seemed to have driven off most of the tourists while also being out of season but this meant we had the pier all to ourselves.
Much like Pier 39 in San Fran, it was all pretty gimmicky but it was a fun walk. The smell of the clam chowder bowls and people inside drinking coffee while the wind battered us was all so tempting but we did resist. Here we found our California fridge magnet and an additional otter one that Nicola fell in love with to celebrate her new best friends, where we also managed to see another couple of otters floating by the pier.
We also saw some harbour seals swimming slowly and elegantly down below us which was the closest we had ever got to them and pretty exciting.
From the pier we walked along the coast to Monterey town and the aquarium which was a fairly long walk but it was nice to properly stretch our legs. We saw many many more otters along the way plus some divers in full body wetsuits going out to snorkel with them and the kelp. If it was warm, we would have been incredibly jealous but alas it was freezing so we had zero desire.
Monterey was quite an interesting town. It came to prominence for sardine fishing and canning before overfishing (plus maybe some other factors) collapsed the fish population and then the trade. The remnants of the old canning buildings remain and have been converted but it was a pretty unique look as we walked through and sauntered through the gift shops. Nicola was in otter memorabilia heaven citing her favourite phrase of ‘if I was on holiday’ when she knows she can’t sensibly purchase anything.
Once at the aquarium we had a sit down to eat our packed lunch before turning back and walking to the car. It was a very pleasant walk and town.
While still being fairly early we drove over to another small town called Carmel-By-The-Sea. As soon as we parked up on the road we knew we had hit wealthy territory.
The town was incredibly quaint with beautiful buildings down well looked after and picturesque streets. Designer shops were the first things we saw as we pulled up and the number one thing to do clearly appears to be wine tasting as these experience shops were absolutely everywhere. Luke did not want to enquire about what was on offer nor the price.
We had a lovely short walk around before deciding to drive down the part of Route 1 that was accessible from the North side in Monterey. The adverse weather had collapsed part of the highway down the coast to Morro Bay which is considered to be a very popular and picturesque drive down the coast. We would have to take the long diversion inland the next day but were keen to see what Route 1 had to offer.
We made it as far as Big Sur before turning around. The coastal roads were nice but our opinion is they get pretty samey after a while and having experienced much of it in NZ we don’t quite get the hype. Big Sur however was pretty cool, as the road became swallowed by massive trees and forests which for us is more exciting.
We went back to the hostel, microwaved our meal and called it a night.
The drive to Morro Bay was less fun as the predicted storm came rolling through. Californian roads are not at all designed for adverse weather as the surface water flooding proved but slow and steady worked just fine.
Once we made our way around the Route 1 diversion we drove north to see the Elephant Seal vista point, again hoping that our efforts of going back on ourselves would not be a waste of time.
We were not disappointed. A massive colony was resting on the sandy beach that stretched a long way. It appeared there were mainly females and pups with one massive male lying completely inactive. Manz has many children.
Luke’s favourite was the one seal that made the journey from the sea’s edge and decided to waddle inland, clearly so exhausted in doing so they had to take about 5 stops along the way to reload. The jiggle was exceptional.
It was a long drive to Morro Bay and after spending a bit of time in the hostel we went for an early evening walk to stretch our legs. Nicola made the sensible decision of having a snack beforehand otherwise she would have caved in to one of the array of seafood restaurants that lined the coastal pier we walked down. Doesn’t get much fresher than that.
We stayed strong and had a nice walk around the coast which had the sun setting to the backdrop of boats and an unusual giant rock.
We also made friends with a sea lion that was chilling on the rocks unbelievably close to the railing. Again, some great close up wildlife views.
Microwave meal for dinner and motel chilling.
After checking out we drove a relatively short distance to Pismo beach pier. Seems every place along the coast has a pier and at this point it felt like we were trying to catch them all.
Pismo was aite. The pier had very little on it but it was pretty massive, the most entertaining thing being a surfer out in the choppy AF sea and seeming to spend more time duck diving under waves than riding them. Looked like an exhausting and unrewarding session.
From there we drove to Santa Barbara where we would be staying the night. As we arrived earlier than the 3pm check in USA accommodation allows, we had to leave our big bags in the car and take with us all our valuables which makes for a pretty heavy day bag. General rule in American cities is not to do this and certainly have nothing on show. How we miss NZ.
We parked up in what seemed like a decent area / street and walked along the coast to, you guessed it, the pier. There was truly very little here to see but gave nice views of the town and the mountains in the backdrop before heading into Santa Barbara.
Santa Barbara is lovely. Clearly a very wealthy town, it had an array of nice food joints, bars and cafes as well as some lovely streets and pedestrian only shopping districts. If we had a mind to, we could have happily spent ages eating, drinking and shopping.
The town had some nice features such as the remnants of an old Spanish fort and an incredible town hall / government building with spacious grounds and lovely architecture. It seemed there were about 4 weddings going on in every inch of free space.
Luke was feeling pretty tired so once we had checked into the hotel we didn’t venture out again. Santa Barbara seemed like it would be quite nice at one of the bars in the evening but the driving and walking had taken most of his energy as he has been finding the long drives and concentration in the US much more wearisome than the leisurely left handed driving of NZ. At least it was the cheap option.
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