50 miles in 4hrs 25mins (incl many, many minutes watching the sealife)
Total distance - 1,296 miles
Now, to clarify, I was never really lost. The sea was somewhere a few miles or so to my right(ish), Highway 1 was somewhere a few miles to my left(ish) and the sun was in the general place in the sky I thought it should be. But other than that, yup, not a damn clue where I was, asides from when I ended up in someone's front garden. And that was the story for most of today.
Things hadn't exactly started well. I awoke, after a bad night's sleep due to a combination of noise from the car park outside but more so from the air con being up at +80F to dry my washing for today. And when I awoke it was 9.45am. Oops! Guess I did need my rest. I wasn't exactly able to rush out the door as I first had to replace a couple of spokes that broke yesterday late into the day. Therefore, it wasn't til 11.15 that I finally rolled out of Santa Cruz, hopefully never to return. Getting out the town wasn't easy though as Highway 1 appears to be off-limits to bikes around here so I had to take to following the random 'bike route' signs out of (more like all around) town. Unlike in Washington and particularly Oregon, there doesn't really appear much thought or structure has been put into the Pacific Coast bike route here in California. Some of the 'diversions' are comical, and on dreadful road surfaces and several junctions are totally devoid of direction signs. I kind of get the feeling that it's really all just about keeping the bikes away from the main roads so the traffic keeps flowing rather than planning a good route for bikes. Anyway, I digress. Well, I quickly became, how do I put it, not lost just temporarily unaware of my exact location. This temporary situation continued off and mostly on for the next 25 miles which took me through vast water-sprayed fields of strawberries, the aroma from which was quite superb.
Not being allowed on the main road meant no sign of the food stops I'd been hoping for so it was with no small element of desperation that I pulled off the road at Moss Landing in the hope of finding sustenance. And I was soon delighted I had done, not cause I found food other than the cranberry muffin in my pack, but because I found this sight in the pic of a pier farcically overflowing with sealions. And to add to the sight, there was also at least three of what are my favourite animals, otters, lazily swimming around the bay feasting on whatever they could dredge up. There's actually one of them in the pic in the water a couple of metres beyond the pier near the middle of the shot. I was happy. I stood in the sun watching them for quite some time but, at 1.45, with only 28 miles on the clock, I knew I had to move on. So I reluctantly saddled up and started out through the now endless fields of artichokes, some of them complete with pictures of Miss Artichoke Festival 1947, none other than a certain Norma Jeane Mortenson. Around 35 miles in a great 2-lane cycle path appeared in what seemed the middle of nowhere and I happily shot along it for the next 15 miles successfully avoiding taking out any of the many squirrels and lizards dashing across the path. Then, into Monterey where the path went down to the blue sandy beach and around the harbour. The sun was out, I was hungry, and when I saw the seals sunning themselves on the rocks in the harbour I succumbed to the charm of this town and decided to call an early end to the day.
Looking forward to tomorrow it'll take me along the famous (apparently) 17 Mile Drive including past Pebble Beach Golf Course before disappearing into the depths of Big Sur county where, based on what Mark Beamont said on his round the world trip, I think I'm highly unlikely to get a mobile signal so could be signing off on the blog for a couple of days.
