We are back on the West Coast and you can tell, the sky is still blue but the temperature has dropped 15 degrees or so, the day is lovely and warm with a tiny cool breeze taking the edge off the heat, as soon as the sun goes down it is cold, for the first time ever last night we did not have the air conditioning on!
Our first destination was to the coast and the town of Guadalupe, this town has a large coastal dune reserve, sand dunes as far as the eye can see. Its claim to fame was when Cecil B DeMille in 1923 made the silent
movie The Ten Commandments, this landscape was his Egypt. Enormous Egyptian sets were constructed on the sand and because of there size, when filming finished to save costs they were left…and buried. Decades passed and the exact location of the sets were forgotten, in 1983 archaeologists started looking for the ‘Lost City’, several artifacts have been found and the exact location of the large sets pin pointed. The have also made the Pirates of the Caribbean, GI Jane and Hildago on this site. The sand felt silky and beautiful, it had beautiful wind sculptured wrinkles in the surface and it was quite hard packed to walk on. We were one of the first ones on the dunes this morning and there were alot of animal tracks in the sand….a ranger nearby came over and was talking to us and confirmed the tracks were bob cat paw prints in the sand….no way! Another big animal we haven’t seen….well the size of a medium dog…..still a big pussy cat!
This area is an agricultural belt, lush, green, flat and fertile, fields of strawberry’s, broccoli, cabbage and lettuce as far as the eye can see….when we drove by at 8.30am the temperature was 65F and the fields were full of
workers getting the work done before the heat of the day broiled in. The planting and harvesting rigs were huge, I have taken photos of these below, however these rigs were working side by side with three others, the people and machinery input is as enormous as the landscape they are planting and harvesting.
We stopped at Arroyo Grande, a small place for a breakfast coffee, they were setting up for their farmers market and we were looking at an old swing bridge that linked the market place with the town when we saw a kid wearing a silver fern cap. Rosie asked the kid where he got the cap from, he said, my Granny…Granny came up and we said we were from NZ and noticed the cap her grandson was wearing, she said her and her husband were in NZ just before the earthquake, they spoke about their travels and we said seeing the cap was an omen as the Rugby World Cup finals were today, they said they remembered the World Cup count down clock…defo a good omen!
We stopped at Pismo Beach, a small coastal community on the Pacific Coastal Highway, 79F, white sand, blue sky and hardly anyone on the beach, I couldn’t believe how nice and empty the beach was. The first ‘Baywatch’ towers I have ever seen. Looking over the pier and beach were these wee crusty beach Bach’s on prime land, the modern flash houses were all behind them looking over the top.
Just north of the town was the Monarch Butterfly Grove, from the end of October to January Monarch Butterfly’s migrated to this particular grove of eucalyptus trees every year. The amount of people here were outstanding…they outnumbered the butterfly’s….they hadn’t really started coming yet, we had shown up abit early in their calender. Apparently when they settled on the trees, they were that thick you couldn’t tell them from the leaves. Look closely and you can see a few early comers.
We were only a few miles from Cambria, our overnight stop, another short days driving today was great. We found nice digs right on the beachfront and settled in for the day, we explored the town and then went for drive in the sunny afternoon with the top down. It was great, went for a cruise around the countryside and stopped at San Simeon, it is a natural harbour with a wee pier and a nice swimming bay ideal for families and kids to swim in. There were a few family groups all set up on the beach with gazebos and picnics, but it was still quite empty….
