the highs of lo-bos

Point Lobos State Reserve is a headland at Carmel just north of Big Sur and at the southern end of Monterey Bay.  Their website has some great photoshttp://www.pointlobos.org/arts/photography

The headland is covered with Monterey pine and Monterey Cypress, one of only two native stands of Monterey cypress anywhere.  

The rocks and trees have been sculpted by wind and sea and succulent plants grow in the cracks in the rock so it all looks very landscaped.  There are sea otters, seals and a sea lion colony.  

Three sea otters were bobbing around in the bay, the waves were pretty big, two had very young pups on their chests, a volunteer was on hand with a telescope so we could have a look but it was a bit seasick inducing.  The population of sea otters in the Monterey area is decreasing, they have seen a high mortality rate in recent years and birth rates are not increasing.  The Alaska sea otter population is doing much better, but maybe not for long (we have just found out about this http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Forg2.democracyinaction.org%2Fo%2F6912%2Fp%2Fdia%2Faction%2Fpublic%2F%3Faction_KEY%3D8745&h=tAQF9IOiYAQGDV2VSEZFkXeZCK7CgW3mmjMDzKeFQ4EUgsA) 

All were just about wiped out in as a result of years of harvesting for their fur and it is though all today's Californian population are from a remnant of around 20 individuals left in 1938, about 1000 were left in Alaska.

We think that this rock formation looked like a Pika

cool rock formation

there are sea lions on these rocks, but are zoom wasn't up to the job

The sea lion colony was all male, the females live in a similar colony further down the coast and they only meet once a year to breed.  The rocks were covered in sealions, they weren't flat rocks either, we couldn't believe how well they could climb.  We watched some climbing around over the rocks walking all over others that were asleep, they are better at going up than down as they don't have much control over speed or direction and just point their head down and slide, it looked painful.  The best thing was watching sealions that were trying to get out of the sea onto the rocks.  They bobbed around trying to time their jump with the huge waves that would lift them up into position but if they didn't jump in time they got bumped into the rocks on the way down.  Some tried for ages and occasionally one would get onto an intermediate rock only to washed away a minute later, they were probably just enjoying it.

sandstone shapes

Sticky monkey flower - Mimulus aurantiacus 

Sticky monkey Ralph with a Monterey cypress

Brown algae on the branches called trentepohlia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trentepohlia_(alga)

Succulents growing in among the rocks

sadly we didn't see any pigs

Coasting along in Big Sur

We were told (mainly by adverts) that California was always sunny, sadly on our third day there a storm hit, this was a little annoying as we had come here to get away from the cold (minus five) of Yosemite. Luckily the bad weather only stuck around for a few days.

A California quail, amazing deely-bopper on the front of its head. You can't really see it our phot but check out this link http://tinyurl.com/7fzylrn

Our campsite in Big Sur State Park.  We had heard the State of California was closing some of its State Parks as it's now bankrupt but all the ones on the coast were unaffected and as far as we could see from the size, cost and number of other campers doing a roaring trade. Ralph also wanted me to point out his professional looking tarp which he'd perfected over the 6 week roadtrip - good job Ralph!

pretty coast

more prettiness

On the search for the Californian condor, we eventually saw three with their huge wing tags circling above the cliffs.  Apart from being huge, black and white and wearing tags you can tell a condor from other birds of prey as they don't flap their wings (well they may do so about once an hour) they just soar.  There are so many other turkey vultures and hawks that we had lots of false alarms.

Purple sand.  The darker sandy bits in the photo were purple.  The beaches were only accessible at a few points where they were designated as a state park, you had to pay a fee at each one.  The rest of the coast is very rich people's property.

having a paddle

more paddling

We did a bit of boldering on this rock, well Fi did, I mostly fell off

We saw some guys bait digging for fishing, the sand worms were a beautiful colour and shimmery a bit pearl like.

Anemone of the State of California

tiny crab 

Wild turkeys couldn't drag me away

Ralph spotted this person radio tracking something from the road, we thought it would be a condor watcher but it turned out to be a girl studying the sea otters, she let us borrow her scope to have a look.  They are tagged on their back feet and she can read the number while they're bobbing in the sea, it was very impressive as it made us feel seasick looking through the scope at them.  They also have them same transmitter in their abdomen as the Alaskan ones.

Another great scenic spot

only slightly marred by the 20 foot high flag pole with the american flag - Ralph wanted to create a flagpole of his pants (thats underwear in the UK for any US readers) with a tent pole in protest, but we got up too late and our neighbours had already left..

awesome rock arch

Amazing rock patterns

elephantastic

After Sequoia we headed for the coast in search of elephant seals.........and after the cold and snow of Yosemite and Sequoia we were certainly ready for the (what we believed to be, through the power of advertising) the always sunny California coast!  It took the best part of a day to drive from Sequoia National Park across a vast agricultural landscape which started with lemon trees, then through the home of Sunmaid Raisins, then huge areas where cattle were standing on soil, no grass for miles around and huge shelters for them to stand under, big chicken sheds, it absolutely stank outside and then it just turned to vast fields of plastic which looks just like water.  Pretty depressing stuff.......

Lemons

Sunset on the way to San Simeon, just before we passed the spot where James Dean crashed his car.

On our first night of camping near San Simeon, there was a very strange halo around the moon, I have often seen this when it has been a much tighter circle of cloud around the moon but this one had a massive circumference and filled the sky to such an extent that I had to lie on the ground to fit it in a picture - it was really cool.  San Simeon is about 100 miles south of Monterey on Route 101, California's famous coastal road.

Turkey vulture at the campsite.  Coyotes were yipping and howling in the night and at dawn in the fields behind the campsite, amazingly it didn't bother our neighbour's three dogs and we loved hearing them.

Giant Sardines

At this time of year it is just the juveniles on the beach, they mostly sleep and males occasionally practice sparring in preparation for their adult lives. When the adults do eventually move onto the beach in December for breeding season all the juveniles have to relocate.  Elephant seals spend most of the year at sea, diving up to 5000ft for up to 2 hours.  http://www.elephantseal.org/

tiny spider on Fiona's arm

over-fed Californian ground squirrel

Lulu a lovely dog with a pearl necklace, that we met at lunchtime.

The sandwiches were great but gigantic (Lulu in background)

yum, Gherkins rule

There were tonnes of Grackles all over the campsite, they did this really cool thing of puffing up, check it out -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTicoX3uO9U

A banana seal

The top blue strip represents the length of the gigantic adult males, the middle blue strip is length of adult female and Ralph is about the size of a juvenile.

Norm and his dogs, our neighbour at the campsite.

The skull of an adult male elephant seal (the one on the left)

Some juvenilles messing about - they look decidedly slug like when they move about

Sparring - It was peeing down with rain, hence the misty soft focus like pictures.

The juvenile males are just getting their long noses, we'd love to see an adult male but unfortunately they're out at sea until December.