The Big Sur

Our travels now took us to meet up with an old work buddy, Robbie Burns, his wife Carol and their new addition, Andrew. Robbie moved to Ventura about 2 years ago, which is where Carol lives. Ventura is about 1 hour north of LA, right on the coast. It's a lovely place with great beaches, buzzing downtown and historic landmarks. The only problem with Ventura perhaps is that it's over looked by mountains that are covered in trees thast in the summer and autumn can catch fire very easily and threaten the town. The mountain views, however, make it a very beautiful place to live.

Robbie and Carol were very kind and offered us their spare bed for the night with the added treat of the Deva shower he has installed. We jumped at the chance! After a few beers we headed out into Ventura for a lovely meal and a great catch up,before a couple more beers in the local Irish bar. Carol, who wasn't drinking, drove us around Ventura and up into the mountains so we could see the night time view of the city. Cazzie and I thoroughly enjoyed our stay with the Burns' and want to say another big thank you to them both!

The next day we headed north to Santa Barbara, a quaint little town on the coast. We jumped on board another trolley tour that took us around the city to places such as the downtown, the mission (old Spanish Franciscans religious site) and the houses of the rich and famous including Oprah Winfrey. This took about 2 hours so we got out our bikes and rode round some of the cycle routes before calling it quits and heading further north to our RV park in Morro Bay for the night.

We were up bright and early the next day to start our trip up the Highway 1 taking in some sights along the way, which began in Morro Bay with a classic car show and a volcanic rock sticking out the ocean.

After a few stops in a couple of little towns, where we saw a house made totally out of recycled rubbish called Nit Wit, we arrived at Hearst Castle. This place is the home of a former publicist that inherited it from his parents when he was 57 and decided to expand the family home into what I can only describe as an olden day Playboy Mansion. This place has everything including 2 huge swimming pools, vineyards, orchards, a wildlife sanctuary with bears, giraffes and zebras, 56 bedrooms, 61 restrooms, 41 fireplaces, 19 living rooms and a dining room. The castle was damn impressive! The location of this mansion was in the hills and based around the natural springs that are here, which still supply the water to the pools today.


This place is so exclusive that the week previous Brooke Shields held a small party on a veranda there for 4 hours at a cost of $20,000. We spent about 2 hours on the guided tour before jumping back in the van and heading towards the Big Sur campsite for the night.

I had never heard of the Big Sur, but is an area on the coast of California that you drive through taking Highway 1, which runs parallel to its more famous brother, the 101. It's a long and winding road that hugs the Pacific Ocean. Most of you will have seen this road as it's where a lot of car adverts are filmed. This was a great time of year to to this drive as in the Spring and Summer it gets clouded with fog. The views were terrific.

We continued our drive up the Big Sur until we reached the 17 mile drive. This is a scenic road through Pacific Grove and Pebble Beach along the Pacific Coastline. Is made up of huge houses and mansions and a number of top end golf courses, including Pebble Beach Golf course. This was the last point on the drive and I can only imagine how good it must be to play here - and expensive.

We did feel very out of place in our hiking boots and scruffy t-shirts, but we didn't care. The drive was a real highlight for us as it takes in 20 or so different points of interest with some spectacular views.

This drive took us 2 days but we could have taken 3 or 4 it was that good.

All the highlight are here!

Stuoobs

xxx