ROADTRIP

Thanks to my awesome cousin Stuart 'STUHAST' Hartley, we decided we could afford to rent a car for a week as through his California-mafia connections he managed to get the under-25 surcharge waived, so it was just about do-able. The night before we had a cool evening watching Anchorman, drinking 40s and hanging out with my 'cuz' - just like old times it was great.

In our supercharged amazingly high speed Kia Spectra EX (worst car ever; fact) we set off from San Rafael, north of San Francisco, drove over the Golden Gate Bridge and, after a few miscalculations with our borrowed SatNav (thanks Colin & Scott), wound our way pointlessly around San Francisco for a good hour before eventually returning to the same road we had crossed the bridge on, and set about on our epic Highway 1-South adventure. For the majority of the trip it was Matt behind the wheel, Kate put in a few cameo appearances as driver, but was swiftly removed from this role after a couple of hair-raising moments a little bit too close to the edge of the cliffs!

Our first stop was Santa Cruz, which we were pretty excited about. We found a great campsite (the $30 tent actually lasted pretty well) and set up home, this time with a few extra blankets borrowed from Stu. Santa Cruz was actually a little bit disappointing, there was no surf and the boardwalk was closed for the winter, so it seemed like we had come at the wrong time. We had fish and chips on the pier, and felt bizarrely like we could have been in Torquay; not exactly what we were looking for!

After Santa Cruz, continuing south, we headed for the Big Sur coastline, 90 miles of hardcore pounding surf hitting the rugged, windy cliffs that Highway 1 curves along (think old-school James Bond car chases along windy cliffs and you have just pictured the Big Sur roads). This was the area of the coastline that inspired us to go on a roadtrip in the first place, and it really was worth it. The views were fantastic, the roads were amazing to drive on (even in the cumbersome Kia) and the beaches were beautiful. We found a campsite in Pfeiffer State Park, right next to the Big Sur river. After enquiring about board hire we were urged to not go in the water, and found out why when we got to the beach; the waves were soooo powerful, and the surf was littered with jagged sharp rocks, so we enjoyed an afternoon just watching the waves from the safety of the shore (it wasn't just us being wimps; nobody was out). Along highway 1 you are lucky to see a store every 20 miles, so we were grateful that right down the road from our campsite we found a pretty good bar for some Sierra Nevada's and some steaks - a good end to an awesome day!

Eager to find some surf we followed the recommendation of a helpful ranger girl from our campsite and headed down to Morro Bay. The waves were around 4 feet, perfect for us to hire a couple of long boards from a local surf shop and ride the surf all day until the sun started to set! We caught quite a few decent waves, it was awesome just for that until the day got even better - a playful seal bumped into me as I was trying to catch a wave, which heightened my awareness of all the creatures in the water. Gangs of pelicans started to appear, which we later realised can mean one thing only - dolphins (the birds gather to eat the fish the dolphins round up). There were about 4 or 5 dolhpins that we could see, just waiting for the waves like everybody else then jumping through the surf as they broke, so amazing!

Saturday we went to Pismo Beach, which may have been fun if it was still nice but that morning a huge blanket of cold grey fog hit the entire coastline, which really put a downer on the day anyway, but the town was basically just a tacky tourist trap, and its one saving grace (the surf) failed to help out as the waves were closing out close to shore, so after an hour sitting on our boards in the cold we gave up to seek some warmer entertainment in the shape of a restaurant and the cinema. We watched 'burn after reading' - very good.

As the fog hadn't quite lifted the day after we decided to drive all the way down to Santa Barbara for a day, initially in search of the sun once more, which we found thankfully! After a fun day looking around the town and relaxing on the beach we went to stay with a friend of Stu's - Mike Perry, his wife Ashley and little baby Connor (very cute!). We were so glad we made the effort to go down there - they were so hospitable and friendly it was awesome, they took us out for a fantastic Mexican dinner, told us tales of their travels, and reminisced of earlier adventures (I had stayed with Mike in San Diego 3 years ago when he lived with Stu). Ashley had traveled quite a bit so she knew exactly what we needed - hot showers, a washing machine (when boardshorts stay damp for a week they go mouldy!) and a comfy bed to sleep in, we were so grateful!

For our penultimate day on the road we had to head back north owing to some stupid rental car charges forcing us to return the car to its original destination. This wasn't too much of a problem in the end though as it meant we could return to Morro Bay where we had so much fun before, this time the surf was a little bit smaller, but still enough for a good few hours on longboards, and the dolphins came out to play again.

Yesterday we had to get a lot of miles under our belts, so broke up the day by stopping in Monterey to go to the aquarium there, home to loads of scary looking jellyfish, enourmous tuna, rays, sharks, barracuda and all sorts of fascinating creatures of the deep.

We arrived back in San Rafael late in the evening after a fun SatNav-led detour adding a fun few hours in traffic Jams to our journey, grrr!

960 miles later we returned the car, smelly, tired and aching from the surf but very happy we had done it! We are now chilling at Stu's house, will go to Ian's tomorrow and then on Friday we fly to San Diego for a week.