Framedlight

After lunch we went over to a 'Discovery Centre' by the car park in San Simeon and found that there were 2 places a little further north where you could see elephant seals. The first area was quiet and we stayed there for a while watching the animals. The adult males were still at sea so we were looking at the ladies and juveniles. The adolescent males were feisty and kept rising from their normal stupor and having brief skirmishes, after which they would settle back down to sleep. Sleeping was done in heaps, preferably one above the other. In the height of the winter season there are apparently around 16,000 of these giant seals breeding along this stretch of coast. Here is a picture of an overview of their rookery. Seals were not the only animals on offer. Here is an egret and below a rock full of cormorants and then a pelican. This seal had a penchant for seaweed. There were lot of runny noses.

We had not booked camp sites along the central coast of California as we were not sure of our timings. But after hunting around for a camping space the night before, we left Lake Lopez early the next morning and drove across to Montana de Oro State Park, on the coast roughly halfway between Los Angeles and Monterey to try and book in immediately. We were thrilled to see a pumpkin field on the way, so American! As we got near to the coast the mist came down and swirled around the eucalyptus trees that grew along the side of the road. There is a state run campsite right next to the sea. We saw the warden who said we could reserve a spot now, so we paid him, filled in a slip and attached it to the marker  post next to an empty site. Normal procedure. Comforted that we had somewhere to lay our heads we drove to a little car park next to Spooner's Cove and walked down onto the sand. The fog still hung around the horizon but there were a few people on the beach includ