|
This series of images from a day trip that I did south out of
Monterey. Heading south on Hwy 1 until the end of it then heading inland and
zig-zagging back and forth across the low ranges and the twisty roads found
there-in. There's some great roads to be found here. Nothing technically
challenging, just a nice rhythmn of back and forth 25-30mph marked corners with
almost no straight road between them. There's no traffic at all so you can
get moving quite fast through these with little care about having to dodge
cyclists, barely-mobile homes and squids.
The first two photos are of the coastline about 20 miles south of Monterey. I'd
taken a fairly early start, but there was still a heap of traffic. At the point
where I stopped for these photos, I was in a queue of about 10 cars and a
couple of mobile homes. There was just no point getting frustrated, so I pulled
over to take some photos of the scenery and the road to show my aussie friends
back home.
Near the southern end of Hwy 1, there's a place called Point Padre, which is where
the other 3 photos come from. Here wild elephant seals have established a colony
and as a result a lot of tourist attraction as well. A lot of the local
motorcyclists also seem to make this a stopping off point too. As I entered the
carpark, there must have been 20 or 30 bikes (mostly various forms of cruisers)
already there, with more coming and going every minute.
Of course, with tourists, come the more bold forms of wildlife, as this one
squirrel can attest to. A few of them would wander across the path and take
or steal food from people sitting there. Although it is hard to see in the
middle photo, there's about 10 squirrels in that shot. A lot of them darting
in and around the low scrub on the small cliff face. The place was crawling
with them. Overall, I estimate there must have been at least 100 of them
scampering around (the brush looked like it was literrally alive with all
the movement inside it), some more brave than others.
Finally, the main attraction - the seals. Here a couple of bull pups were
testing out their prowess for the inevitable mating rights to come some
time later. The brown seals are the females, the silver ones are the newly
born pups that have just shed their first layer of fur and skin, while the
black ones are males in various states of development. Just off to the
left of this photo is the alpha male, who was almost twice the size of
the ones you see here.
|
