Following Hearst Castle

We left Hearst Castle just as the promised rain and mists closed in.  Easy enough driving for about 10 minutes then in front of us Mountains appeared literally straight out of the flat ground.  The Big Sur is what this next area is called about 100 miles to Monterey, one time capital of California.

One of the hardest drives I have done, not helped by a large van now remeasured and found to be 30ft not 26ft as ordered. A coastal road that went up and up and down and down and round bend after bend times 1000.  Sea and wild coast on the other side of the road luckily though in reality I saw none of it.

Stopped, at last the night in Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park a long rambling site which wound its way round and under huge redwood trees the area being the furthest south these trees are known.  These were small ones of around 150 ft or so  the big ones up to 370ft are further north. Sequoias and redwoods, same family, can live to 3500 years those up to 1000 years are known as youngsters.

Wonderful trees but its dark and almost threatening  skulking around at the bottom of them .Saw a few birds today and have a good bird book quite difficult though as there are a lot of birds here  27 varieties of sparrow for instance and so it goes on.  A nice common one though is the blackbird which sports bright red epaulets about 1.5 inches long which give a bright flash when flying and a rather regal poise when grounded as if standing on guard.

Thursday 26th April 2012
We continued onward to Carmel famous for having Clint Eastwood as mayor for one year. An extremely expensive town sitting on the edge of Monterey and 17 mile drive which includes Pebble Beach with properties up to $97million. To be fair the majority of property ranges from $4million to only $25million much of which would be swept away by a decent sized tsunami.

Pleasant site Carmel by the River Rv park but unfortunately accessed by a very narrow iron bridge with iron base sides etc.  The bridge about 1 mile from site is approached round a tightish bend with no warning and is just 8ft 6inches wide. I was distracted by a car in the distance and my problem with keeping to far to the right reared its ugly head and I took out the outer rear back tire!  Repair man was at site within one hour to change tyre, he loved Antiques Road show.

Collected wheel and new tyre next day $350 and had fridge which was freezing everything repaired in the same town at the same time.  That paid for by El Monte was part $21 labour for 5 minutes $120.

Getting a bit mixed up here so will stop.  Photos will come but so slow its taking over 1hr to get a single one sorted.