It is only today that I start to see the real beauty of California’s coastline, where the sea dramatically collides with the red rock mountain terrain, while the highway bends through carved out niches. I imagine this is one of the more accident strewn stretches of highway in the country, not so much for its blind bends, but for the distracting quality of the landscape which has me making several hasty detours onto stop off points at the side of the road.
Along Highway 1 is the diversion of Hearst Castle, a monument to garish opulence built in the 1920s at the behest of Randolph Hearst, the founder of the publishing empire. I say I stopped at Hearst Castle, but actually I stopped at the castle’s visitor centre. The castle is perched at the top of the hill rising up from the visitors centre, and is accessible only by purchasing a ticket for a bus tour. I notice that there is no mention of the one-time bank robber Patti Hearst at the visitors centre.
A few miles up the coastal road is the beach home of a colony of Elephant Seals, so named because of the bulls’ large blubbery trunk like nose. This is the highlight of my day. They are a grumpy lot, continually nipping at each other and the males, which can be up to 16 ft long and 6,000 pounds, make a flurry of obnoxious noises. The infants and adolescents are mostly light and silver coloured, while the females are malting at this time of year, so look like they have some sort of skin disease. The colony are densely packed onto the thin beach, huddled together like a closely knit if cantankerous family. I am sure things get quite vicious in mating season.
I find a campsite in the wooded valley just off Highway 1 and buy a tent from the camping store at the top of the campsite. The store owner sells me one that he says his son used once for $25, which turns out to be $15 cheaper than my camping spot. When you consider that a lot of people here have large gas guzzling and richly kitted out camper trucks (it wouldn’t do them justice to call them vans), camping can be an expensive hobby in the US, especially on coastal California.
The setting is a forest of sycamore and redwood trees, with a shallow rippling river running through the middle of the site. There are no cooking facilities, but there is a bar restaurant, where I spend the evening drinking JD & cokes and talking Rawwwk to two guys who, despite a twenty year age gap between them, both agree that ‘Zep ruled man’. They also shared a fondness for Rush though.
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