Apparently I woke Deborah from one of the best night of sleep in weeks with a sneeze, although it didn’t wake me up and I didn’t feel sneezy when I did, so I’m concluding it was a sneeze dream. We had both agreed that this was a near-perfect motel room, with a big fridge, a working microwave, a coffee making machine (for Deborah’s hot water drink), a TV with channels that were actually selectable, a hair drier (for both Deborah’s hair and drying items of clothing), a big comfortable bed and plenty of space to park two oversized bikes. All that was left to check out was the free breakfast… 7.5 out of 10 as only half the toaster was working and there wasn’t a waffle press, but not a bad effort.
Today was planned as a short day of just over 40 miles as there are a distinct shortage of places to camp if we go beyond Lucia unless we push on to a 70-mile day which we have no inclination to do.
The first few miles were relatively easy-going with gently rolling roads sticking close to the shoreline, which is certainly not the case with big sections of Pacific Coast Highway experienced so far. As the road dropped close to one bay we heard strange sounds coming from the sea. We pulled up the bikes and crossed the road to get a better look. The noises were coming from the little grey heads that were bobbing around in the water… seals.
We cycled a little further on, with road signs now advertising that we were approaching Elephant Seal Vista. Not knowing what to expect to see we pulled into the car park of the vista, abandoned our bikes and joined a few people that appeared to be peering out to sea. As we approached the wooden fence that blocked our path to the beach it became apparent that the focus wasn’t the sea, but the hundreds of elephant seals that were lying on the beach asleep.
As we wandered up and down the path overlooking the beach we were approached by Judy, one of the volunteers that man the beach. It seems that the lounging seals beneath us where female and juvenile male elephant seals that start to arrive at the beach at this time of year, shortly before the adult males (8 years+) turn up in December, at which point battle between the males commences with the winning alpha males then establishing their harems. It was an amazing sight to see all these seals in one place lying around, so it must be an amazing sight when the big guys turn up, so another must-see added to the bucket list.
By the time we were back on the road, the wind had picked up, just in time for the roads to start getting much more hilly, with big climbs followed by big descents throughout the day.
Over the past few days, we have seen a lot of tour bikers heading south, more each day so far than we met on the entire Route 66 route, with today being no exception. We spoke to a few that happened to be stopped, but most of them were enjoying their free tailwind ride pushing them south, while we battled against an ever-increasing headwind.
By the time we reached the turnoff for the planned night stop at the Limekiln Campground we were both exhausted, so the very steep drop down to the campground, losing hard-earned metres that we would have to make up again to rejoin the Pacific Coast Highway was not welcome. What was even less welcome was the lady at the reception kiosk telling us that the campground does not have a ‘hiker-biker’ area and that the campsite is full. Not what we wanted to hear and clearly nothing I could say was going to change anything. With no alternative we found ourselves pulling our bikes back up the hill to the main road.
The only chance we had for camping legally tonight was two miles back up the road that we had just cycled. We arrived at the Kirk Creek Campground at about 4pm and were assigned a camp plot by the campground host for the princely sum of $10 while pointing out that the campground is dry. I almost responded that I hadn’t had a drink of alcohol in more than a month when I realized what she meant. The campground doesn’t have any water. While we luckily were carrying enough water to get us through the night and to somewhere we could stock up tomorrow, a shower would have been welcome.
We pushed the bikes down to our allotted plot, only to find two tents and a family already occupying it. After explaining the check-in process to dad, he went up to the host, checked him, and his brood in for the night and we were given an alternate plot, which luckily was the one that Deborah was halfway through erecting the tent in.
I’ll not mention what we had available to eat, but it delivered the much-needed calories as we sat and watched the sun go down and the sky explode with the most vivid shades of red and orange. By 5:50pm the light show was over and there was very little else to do other than have a very early night in preparation for a very early start and what was likely to be a long day of climbing big hills.
