After a chilly night (ca. 5° Celsius when getting up in the morning), we were happy to be pedaling again. For the first time during our journey we were wearing gloves and a hat. Honestly, we thought we will be using these further north only... But apparently the mornings along the Californian coast can be foggy and cold in spring. Shortly before San Luis Obispo we turned towards the coast and followed the Los Osos Valley Road. Around lunchtime, the landscape had entirely changed and we arrived at Morro Bay State Park – probably the most beautiful campground we stayed on so far. After mounting our still wet tent, we explored the beach village on the unloaded bikes. A small marina with sailing boats and a bird refuge was situated just next to the campground. We spotted a sea otter and cormorants. Morro Bay was very picturesque with a prominent rock in midst of the bay, called Morro Rock. On our next morning’s ride, the landscape changed once more and the coast became rougher, while cows were grazing on the hills. Sometimes it even reminded us slightly of Iceland (as strange as this sounds). After a lunch stop at the beach in Cambria, we continued to San Simeon, seeing Hearst Castle and its wine county to our right, straight to the bay where a colony of sea elephants was rooking. The sea elephant cows and their puppies were sleeping at the beach, sometimes shoveling themselves into the sand or fighting for the best spot. They were very entertaining! Have a look at two small videos :-). Philipp remembered to have been here already with his family when he was a child. Pedaling on, we realized that we must have already entered the Big Sur area. Highway 1 suddenly got steeper and many curves followed, while the shoulder for bicyclists basically disappeared. One can compare it with the roads in Ticino. Drivers were clearly not used to mountainous area and even the Swiss girl learnt to cycle hills :-)! As an additional challenge, the wind was hitting in strongly and all the campgrounds we previously envisioned to reach for this leg did either not exist or were closed… Luckily we had power bars with us! Finally, we made it to Plaskett Creek State Park after 6 pm and were very happy to find a free spot on the site reserved for Hike&Bike campers. There we met Rita and Thomas from Vancouver, who were cycling from San Francisco to San Luis Obispo during their spring break. We spent a great evening together and they even invited us to stay at their place near Vancouver, once we reach it in summer. We are already very much looking forward to this!
Although the area around Plaskett Creek was beautiful, we decided to move on the next day with a shorter leg to Big Sur Pfeiffer State Park. Once more, the road went up and down (contributing to the rising altitude counter!), but when reaching the campground, we learnt that the roughest part of Big Sur was now behind us. The Big Sur Pfeiffer State Park was in midst of a redwood tree forest – our first one! The height, diameter and bark of these redwood trees is astonishing! For dinner we enjoyed a burger and cheesecake at the lodge next to the campground. We decided to make use of the many walking trails and stayed two nights. Our next stop should be Monterey – meaning, we have already reached 2/3 of our route from Los Angeles to San Francisco.
1 Comment
peter rüegg
7/4/2016 14:35:19
Hi lucky guys, you just encountered a critically endangered bird species, the Californian Condor! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_condor some guys would give a fortune to see it in the wild. Enjoy your trip, Peter
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September 2016
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