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Wow, what a day! Not only did I walk amongst giants today at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, but I also drove on the iconic Highway 1 along California's spectacularly diverse Pacific coastline and then crossed a desert to get to Sequoia NP! All in a day's driving!
I woke up very early to a crisp cold morning with mist shrouding the tips of the redwood trees. They smell a bit like dusty, sour pine - a very pleasant earthy aroma - something like aged oak, perhaps? We went for a warming breakfast of eggs benedict at the posh lodge restaurant. Followed by a hike through the Redwoods via the Waterfall and Valley View trails. It was hard work climbing those steep slopes but, as the sun started to warm up the land, the cool Pacific mist lifted and revealed a carpet of Redwood, cedar and coastal pines covering the hills all around us. It was beautiful and peaceful (except for the annoying loud American family with the whiny, argumentative kids that could be heard for hundreds of metres along the trail).
After packing up the tent, we headed South on Highway 1. This is a magnificent stretch of the Coastal part of the road winding its way from Monterey all the way down to Los Angeles - a classic roadtrip road, if there ever was one. It was still misty when we got on it but eventually it disappeared and revealed the brilliant aquamarine Pacific Ocean pounding against the rocks below. We stopped briefly at the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park as I'd heard that it had a picturesque waterfall that drops right onto the beach. In fact, this beach was the result of a massive landslide just north of the park in 1983 which shifted millions of tons of soil, sand and rubble and caused deposits to form a beach. The views were breathtaking whichever way you looked!
We stopped very briefly to watch Elephant seals basking on the beach by the Hearst State Park. From far away, they looked like oblong, velvet boulders strewn about like pebbles on a tiny sliver of sand. Once we approached them on the viewing platform we got a true sense of their scale and understood just why they are called elephant seals - they are massive!
Lunch was from a Farmer's Market in Cambria, which we took to eat on a bench by the sea - watching the kelp bobbing on the waves like sea otters. It was really relaxing by the ocean.
This was the last stop before we turned into another road towards the interior and I decided then and there that I will have to return to Highway 1 some day to do a roadtrip from San Fran down to LA. It is such a beautiful coastline that reveals itself slowly as the day progresses and then hides away again as the mist comes rolling back in from the Pacific. It also reminded me a lot of Cape Town and South Africa - rugged, isolated, natural and beautiful - with just a little element of danger thrown in for some excitement!
We stopped for a brief wine-tasting session at a small place called Lone Madrone. As I was the designated driver and we still had hundreds of miles to cover, I didn't try any alcohol, but I did buy an artisanal bar of dark chocolate with roasted cocoa nibs - heavenly! I find American chocolates and sweets, well, far too sweet, but this chocolate did not disappoint! Wendy said that the wines were very good and were from a small Estate which didn't make more than 300 bottles of each wine per year.
After the golden hills of the Paso Robles wine region, we hit the Central Californian desert. It is here that it becomes apparent just how big an industry agriculture is in California. Miles and miles and miles of almond trees, orange trees, vegetables, cultivated flowers and new vineyards in the middle of a dry, dusty and, for the most part, flat desert. I mean, these farms are simply massive! We passed a couple of towns which would not have looked out of place in Mexico - with all the signs in Hispanic. One can only assume that the bulk of the cheap labour force working on these farms are Mexican.
We stopped for gas at a petrol station along Highway 46. I was drawn to the huge billboards of James Dean which were positioned around the building. Inside the store, there were also loads of James Dean paraphernalia so I asked the clerk why there was a James Dean theme? He replied that this was near the area where he died in a high-speed car crash in 1955!
We drove and drove and drove for hours. Eventually, just as the sun was setting and the mountainous ascent began, we reached the entrance to Sequoia National Park. The only available campsite was a 45min drive away (which also happened to be the closest!) and nowhere near the giant sequoias for which the park is famous. At that stage, we really just wanted to pitch up the tent and go to sleep. Exhausted, we ended up getting one of the last spots which was, unfortunately, near the communal bins! The campgrounds were full of Mexican families partying and out and about all night making a noise. Even with earplugs, I had a particularly bad night's sleep (or lack of it).
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