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.
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