Day 9 started slightly differently with the Sunrise breaking into the room, as it seemed to good a chance to leave the curtains open facing the ocean. We had a slow rise and morning routine, grabbing some breakfast in the restaurant, before Celia had arranged a Pedicure and I hit the gym for a attempt at a run on a treadmill overlooking the pacific.
We finally checked out and left the hotel around 10am and headed around the Monterey Peninsular. First up was Sunset Point.
and from there we entered the 17 Mile Drive, this is a toll road but they do provide a guide to what you are seeing as you drive around and the views are stunning and worth the $10 or so we had to pay. We continued arround to Pebble Beach golf course as at the complex there we could grab some fruit and water for the next stage of the drive.
I am not much of a golfer, but the resort at Pebble beach was impressive and included a collection of trophies that have been played for there, including the US Open.
After a while we had seen our share and decided to take the top down on the car and head off down highway 1.
I can include some photo's but like Yosemite before on this trip, they really don't do the scenery justice and I would just say that you need to do this drive at some point in your life, I would not try and get from Monterey to Santa Barbara as we did as that is a LONG LONG drive and if we ever try again, I would stay for a couple of nights at the Monterey hotel, maybe doing the 17 mile drive again on one of those days, maybe on Bicycles this time and definitely split the highway 1 drive at around Pismo beach.
But that's not what we did and so off we went down the coast. just pausing at Big Sur for a pit stop and stopping the car every so often to admire the scenery.
The actual highway goes through different areas, you start with the wild coastline, before heading into the forests around Big Sur and then back to more dramatic coast and then into a more gentle wilderness as we headed into San Simeon. We had planned to stop there for lunch, but as we turned off the highway we realised how small a town it was and the one store did not have anything Celia could eat so we knew we had to head on to Cambria. We did stop at the beach to use the restrooms but did time this badly as a school group was just leaving and every child wanted to change out of their swimming clothes one at a time.
We also stopped at the Elephant Seal beach just before we got to Cambria, the smell was overpowering but just to see them all was a great experience if a little cold as the heat of the day had been blown away by the sea breeze. So we lifted the roof back up for the next part of the drive.
Arriving at Cambria at 4pm, we struggled to find anywhere open for lunch, until almost about to run out of town having walked back to the point we drove in we noticed that the Main Street Grill was open, this was a BBQ joint but the food was hearty and tasty and hit the spot. Celia again had a salad, and I had the Tri-Tip Sandwich.
After Cambria, Highway one got a bit boring, the grand vista's had gone and with the expected time of arrival in Santa Barbara heading towards 8pm we switched to the 101 for speed. Making up some time we made it to our hotel for the night The Harbor View Inn just after 7pm.
After a quick unpack of the car and impressed by the size of the room, and from the balcony we could see the sea, even if we hadn't paid for a sea view, we headed into the Harbour for dinner. A colleague at Celia's work had suggested Brophy Brothers so that's where we were going. After a bit of a wait (as the place is tiny) and it was high school graduation day and we had loads of family groups also looking for somewhere to celebrate we got a table. The food is great and the whole place has a buzz, but the music style made us feel like it was the 80's. I had the Fish and Chips, Celia the Mahi Mahi.
After dinner and a nice walk back to the hotel we slept soundly till the morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment