Monday 9th - day 20.

Monterey to Santa Barbara.

We woke at first light and peeped out into the restaurant car park. As it became light, we realised that although we were next door to the restaurant, this car park was the car park for a Property restoration services company and all the other vehicles had their logo on their sides! By 7am a handful of men in boiler suits were standing next to the building smoking and drinking coffee. They said and did nothing to make us feel unwelcome, but we certainly felt conspicuous, and so we slid stealthily into the drivers seats and pulled away. Chris, asleep in the bed over the cab, woke with a start, thinking the van was being stolen!
First stop was Safeway for provisions and then we set off to drive the ‘17 mile drive’ around Pacific Grove headland to Pebble beach and to Carmel. This drive was tremendous - the road followed the edge of the coast and along the back of numerous idyllic rocky beaches with surf rolling in over white sand.
We stopped at one of the beaches to cook breakfast and sat in the sun to enjoy the meal and the scenery, watching pelicans and other sea birds fly past.
The rest of the drive was full of beautiful coastal scenery - a postcard view at every turn, sea birds, beautiful trees, gorgeous houses and swanky golf courses.
The road ended in the lovely town of Carmel. We stoped and wandered through the pretty streets, full of art galleries, crafts and coffee shops before stopping at Carmelle Belle for lattes, smoothies, fruit crumble and Wi-fi.
Back on the coast we set off on the Coastal road to Big Sur. Sadly the road was blocked due to s landslide at Pfeiffer Beach but the 25 mile ‘there and back’ section was incredibly worthwhile, with more jaw dropping scenery. Bill drove south with Chris sitting (illegally) on the bed in the back, watching the view from the side window looking out over the sea and exclaiming almost continually. The coastline was rocky and rugged - the sea bright blue and even brighter white.
We hiked down to the Andrew Molera State Park beach for lunch. A lovely beach with incredible rough surf. I waded up to my knees and was almost felled by the strong currents and stream of marble sized pebbles crashing over my feet and ankles, and so retreated! Chris was braver and threw himself into the waves, body surfed on a couple of monsters and then scrambled back into the sand too!
We drive back north, over the Bixby Bridge stopping on the even more beautiful Garrapata Beach with even more thundering surf - it was hypnotic to just stand and watch and hear and feel the deafening crash of the waves and to see spray flying high into the air.
At this point we had three hours until sunset. Had it not been for the road closure we would have spent the afternoon driving down the coast road with sea views all the way. As it was, we had to head back north to Carmel, and then south to the other side of the block - a three hour drive.
It was not an unpleasant drive down highway 101 - nice scenery and a good audiobook passed the time quickly and happily.
We arrived just after sunset at Morro Bay. We drive straight onto the beach close to Morro Rock and wandered along the beach, watching shorebirds, fishing boats and the ghostly ‘sleeping rhino’ shape of Morro Rock glowing pale in the moonlight.
We cooked supper overlooking this ethereal scene before heading in towards Santa Barbara, in order to be close enough for Chris’s business meeting tomorrow morning.
We had planned to camp next to the beach at Gaviota State Park but, unlike previous state parks we arrived to find that it closed at sunset and there was a locked barrier across the entrance.
By now it was 10pm and as we were unlikely to find anywhere else open, we pulled alongside some willow trees outside the gate, made some tea, showered and went to sleep.