Big Sur

Not far from Pismo Beach, heading North along the section Highway 1 known as "Big Sur" is William Randolph Hearst's old digs, or rather, his "castle".

It can now be toured by the average Joe. That sounds great right? Hmmm... we thought the idea of two rambunctious boys being forced to stand quietly and listen to a tour guide while NOT touching all the priceless furnishings was a little too much to wish for, so we gave it the big swerve and were quickly rewarded.

Just down the road we found an entire beach overflowing with massive elephant seals! Now THAT'S our cup of tea - stinky, noisy, ever-moving! How amazing to see so many of them in the one place at the one time. There they all were, flipping sand on to their bodies, lumbering their way down to the surf, taking a dip, and occasionally glancing up to the boardwalk above to take in the human voyeurs.

Pumped up by our close encounter with the natural universe, we got back in Bessie and continued on our way, excited to see what else Hwy 1 would offer us, when suddenly we couldn't see a thing. We were in a massive fog whiteout!

We travelled on for a while, but then it seemed kind of pointless - to travel what is reputedly one of the world's most dramatic drives without actually being able to see it!

So we grabbed a site in a forest campground opposite the sand dollar beach and took a stroll down to check out the sand, surf and wildflowers in the misty afternoon.

The next morning was overcast but higher level cloud had replaced the lower band of mist and so the visibility was much improved and we continued on North.

The Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park offered us beautiful views of the McWay Falls which is a stream that runs straight off a cliff top into the ocean. Well, it used to drop straight into the water, but after a massive landslide just north of there in the 80s, a beach was created there by all of the rubble that fell. So the water now drops straight down on to the beach.

There were Californian Condors circling above us and locals explained there are now over a hundred of them in the wild after a breeding program brought their numbers back from a mere 12.

At the Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, further north, we took a four kilometre trail to some falls through a redwood grove and that was okay, but probably not worth the cajoling needed - the boys' hearts weren't quite in it.

Completing the final stretch of Big Sur to Monterey, we understood why it's considered one of the best drives in the world. There's lot of cliff-hugging precariousness mixed in with forest and ocean action. Lovely.

Driving in to Monterey in the late afternoon, we thought we'd grab a campsite quickly and wait to explore the next day, but we were wrong (and more about that next)...

Sand dunes, Danish heritage and Pismo Beach

Heading north from Malibu on Highway 1 we encountered some massive sand dunes draping themselves down the landside cliff faces and couldn't resist the temptation to climb them and run down at full pelt. The boys face-planted a couple of times each and got some serious mouthfuls of sand but all with giggly good humour.

We took the 154 inland a little bit and came across a lovely regional park on the shores of Lake Cachuma with a camping site right beside a playground. So we stopped early and the boys went nuts 'making new friends' as Indy calls it - playing in the park and Indy riding his bike around and around with Dashy running behind on his little legs.

Nearby campers who hosted Indy for dinner accidentally told me about a great little town nearby called Solvang which we resolved to check out the next day.

That afternoon, I went for a jog along part of the Sweetwater Trail and the next morning, Nath did the same but took it all the way to Vista Point and back.

After more morning play, we set off again and sure enough, Solvang was an absolutely pearler.

It was established a century ago by three Danish guys who wanted to preserve their heritage in their new homeland and Solvang doesn't do things by halves - the entire township is a spectacular homage to Denmark.

We wandered through, checking out the windmills and architecture and made sure to sample some traditional Danish pastries and sausage.

Our name "Larsen" is actually Danish, so it was nice from a personal perspective to check it all out.

Next stop was a beautifully-themed Danish mini town playground, back from the main road, called Sunny Fields (which we understood to be the translation of the Danish 'Solvang').

After having a ball, the boys piled back in the RV and we made it as far as Pismo Beach where we found a great site right beside a lagoon in the State Park there.

Indy learnt the hard way that you don't tease geese and recounting the tale of the goose that nearly bit off his you-know-what is giving us fits of giggles every time we mention it.

The boys practised their casting again (with no bait), both of them rode the bike (Dash with the training wheels on and the seat VERY low), and I took a walk over the soft sand dunes down to the beach.

The beach was unbelievable - so many cars down there. It's a recreational vehicle area and it reminded me of Rainbow Beach with the number of cars parked down there and driving back and forth. But there were two subtle differences - there were sedans down on this beach (not all were 4WDs) so that was a surprise - maybe they were bogged?! And the other difference was the huge number of ATVs. Americans seem to own them and trailer them around to spots rather than take the 4WD itself across the sand. Indy has taken to calling them 'Doon Buggies' (in the American style, rather than with our poshy sounded 'y').

The next morning, we saw a diner made from two old train carriages and had to stop for morning tea!

San Diego to Los Angeles

We're following the coastline north from San Diego, taking Highway 1 when we have the option (sometimes the only option is the interstate).

After our night in San Elijo State Park, we spent the morning down on the beach, watching the surfers, the paddle boarders and the Surfliner trains go by.

The next night we stayed at Doheny State Beach, at Dana Point, which was a great spot for flying the kites the boys now have.

The stretch from Dana Point through Laguna Beach to Newport Beach was particularly beautiful - Orange County.

We found a fantastic playground at Laguna Beach in fact and spent a long time there.

But then we hit the sprawl of Los Angeles and being city-phobic as we are, we drove straight through to Malibu (leaving our boys' dreams of Disneyland in Bessie's dust!) Well, not really - they have extremely short memories thank goodness and so while "we might go to Disneyland" brought on momentary excitement, it hasn't been mentioned since.

So we stayed the night in an RV park atop a cliff side above Malibu Seafood where we bought some yummy fish and chips.

In the morning, Nath and I took turns doing the Corral Canyon loop trail, starting at Sara Wan Trailhead, before we set off again.

A consistent thread through every stop we have - whether it's a campground or a playground or a beach - is that the boys seek out other kids like heat-seeking missiles.

Indy is the most extreme form of gregarious and we adults are generally a little more on the reserved side so it's forcing us out of our shells a little bit because we need to go and introduce ourselves to people (as part of the process of apologising for Indy swiping their food or Dash playing with their toys, etc).

But the great thing about chatting with so many people along the way has been that we have found out about great little places that we wouldn't otherwise have known about. In the next blog, I'll tell you about Solvang, one such place that we might have missed except for some folks who kindly 'shared' their hotdogs with Indy.

Day with a hiking legend

Today we were lucky to catch up with Cam Honan, Nath's cousin and an absolute hiking legend.

Anyone interested in hiking should check out his awesome website - www.thehikinglife.com - which has lots of useful and inspiring info and images.

Cam is currently in San Diego helping other hikers ready themselves for the Pacific Crest Trail, which Cam himself has completed a couple of times.

After saying goodbye, we started up Route 101 and have just watched the sun set over St Elijo State Beach where we are camping for the night.

The surf conditions have been so perfect this afternoon that I just caught Nath on Craigslist looking for a second-hand paddle board.

"We'll just strap it on the roof honey"

The boys have been running flat out and are now beach weary and ready for bed.

San Diego Highlights

Wow! San Diego is great. It's got the harbour-side feel of Sydney melded with the laid-back vibe of Brisbane and a similar population density.

Great weather too. It's been hazy each morning but has burnt off quickly as the days have progressed. But after talking with a few locals, I understand they pay for the privilege with what they consider to be higher rents than in other cities. I'm not sure if that's true or not. Everything's relative right?

There is a huuuuuge military presence here. So we kicked off our tourist trail by checking out the Midway Museum on Sunday (21 April). The kids liked the pilots' ready room, the war room (with its radar controls), the chow line and the showers (the short navy shower is particularly relative for us, currently living in an RV) but their absolute favourites (which they couldn't be pulled out of) were the cockpits of the retired planes in the hangar area.

We've also checked out the San Diego Natural History Museum where, like in various other museums of the type, dinsoaurs rule! (Which is just as well, because little boys LOVE dinosaurs!)

We watched two great 3D movies - one on bugs (after which Indy was crying because - spoiler alert - the butterfly gets eaten by the praying mantis) and one about reefs. Both very cool. It's always funny looking over at kids when they're wearing 3D glasses and they're trying to reach out and grab the jellyfish on screen.

We have camped in a few different places - one night in Chula Vista at an RV park, the next night in the Sweetwater Regional Park, and last night in a car park on Shelter Island (beside the America's Cup Harbour). Tonight we're in an RV park again; this time, we're north of Sea World on Mission Bay.

We've been out to the Cabrillo National Monument and have driven around a lot of the suburbs to get a feel for various areas. Our take is that Chula Vista and south, plus Logan Barrio further up have a really strong Mexican flavour. Coronado looks so upmarket that we didn't want to park our dirty old second-hand RV there(!). Shelter Island was a yachties hang-out and for some reason every cocker spaniel of note in the world had gathered there for the annual cocker spaniel's convention. Really, I mean cocker spaniels - I'm not being euphemistic.

The area between Mission Beach and Mission Bay reminds us a lot of Manly in the sense there's ocean on one side and bay/harbour on the other. But construction seems limited to three levels so there's lots of little quaint places, probably with upmarket price tags but without the fancy schmancy feel.

And the beach was lovely - beautiful white sand stretching really deep up to the houses on the shoreline and in front of those is an awesome bike/walking track. Just a couple of blocks away and you're on the bay instead and the bike/walking track is extending along that side too. Nice!

Some other highlights - the San Diego-Coronado bridge is very cool to go over because it's so very high! We are guessing they needed to build it that high so their great big nuclear aircraft carriers wouldn't get stuck going under.

And the San Diego Old Town is really fun. Lots of vibrant colours and sounds (eg. mariachi) reminiscent of mexico, quaint little shops, lots of historical displays - cool.

By far the favourite thing yet in San Diego (for the kids anyway) has been the San Diego Model Train Museum. The pictures will explain better than I can, but Indy got a special tour behind the display after he befriended the manager of the display and impressed him with his earnest love of trains. A happy day indeed!

Back roads to San Diego

Heading out of Joshua Tree National Park today we encountered a massive amount of roadworks on the southern access road but still managed to see lots of the Colorado Desert's Ocatillos (beautiful green-stalked plants with red flowers) and Chollas (little puffy looking cacti).

We had a glimpse of  the Palm Springs-type resorts and golf courses as we headed up into the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument area past Indian Wells and Palm Desert.

The winding zigzagging road up the steep mountainside gave Indy a dizzy spell, so we decided to call it quits on driving for the day and found a little spot at a State Park at the top of the mountain - cheapest paid-for site yet - $8 - loving American value!!

We awoke in our little site (cheap but not scenic) and decided to hit the road before breaky and find a nice little spot to eat, so we headed off on more back roads and found an airstrip used by gliders. 

We saw a few getting towed up into the air and gliding back down again while chowing down on dad's famous breakfast burritos (a.k.a. leftovers in a wrap!)

We drove through beautiful horse ranches and apple growing territory and stopped off in a quaint little town called Julian. 

We strolled through the township and bought one of Mom's Bakery's apple and boysenberry pies. After gorging ourselves we continued through to San Diego.

Luxury tonight - we're staying in a campground with hook-ups!! We've done four nights straight with no electricity (or anything else) and so being back in civilisation with electricity and connectivity and plumbing connections is VERY nice. 

The boys have been going nuts in the campground playground and pool. We're excited about checking out everything in San Diego, starting tomorrow.

Hidden Valley and Keys View

We walked the short one mile (1.6km) track through Hidden Valley, a former hide-out of cattle rustlers who found that the large rock walls surrounding their stolen herds prevented them from being detected.

Afterwards, we checked out the vista from Keys View. Poster boards explained that usually the smog can be pretty terrible and people often don't see much at all. However, with the strong winds that have been blowing we were incredibly lucky and could see not only Palm Springs and Salton Sea but all the way to the Mexican border.

Another night at Jumbo Rocks campground tonight. Nath and I took turns this afternoon walking to Skull Rock (just a short stroll away). It's a really crazy landscape here!

Joshua Tree National Park

Make sure you've got U2 playing when you read this one... (I can't separate the National Park from the Album and imagine the cover art every time I look at one of our photos)...

We drove on from Mojave National Preserve today through equally desolate landscape. We came across another section of the old Route 66 before arriving at the Joshua Tree National Park from the Oasis entrance.

We found a campsite at Jumbo Rocks (so cool as campsites go) -- massive smooth rocks piled up in little bundles all over the landscape. They make for great shelter when camping and give it a very other-wordly feel.

We just kicked back most of the afternoon, except for a ramble the four of us took through the rocks with a scramble up for a better look. 

Nath has taken to drawing Xs in the sand ahead of the boys when they're hiking behind him. They're convinced there's a pirate's bounty up for grabs and we now have to buy a shovel (in case they see any more Xs).

It's been cold at nights and so fantastic weather for making campfires. We've been cooking up most of our chow out over the fires. 

The National Park is actually part Mojave Desert and part Colorado Desert, with the names really referring to the deserts above and below 3,000 feet respectively rather than lines on a map.

We're camping above 3,000 feet and so we're seeing jackrabbits and joshua trees (and squirrels of course).

Mojave Desert

Morning time at our Mojave freebie

A lot of 'housekeeping' today in Vegas, sorting out things we can only do in cities before we head more remote.

Nevertheless, we found time for a two-hour play in a great park at Henderson.

We finally headed out south in the afternoon peak hour and reached the Mojave National Preserve, in the Mojave Desert, around dusk.

We hadn't seen a car for about half an hour and felt we were in a truly empty land when a massive freight train loomed up and we elicited a big honk from the driver - nice!

Hoping to stay in a cheap state park we'd seen on the map, we took a sandy corrugated road (that was meant to be bitumen) and joked about having to tape Bessie back together with gaffa tape the way she was shaking about.

We decided to back track and forget the campground but turning around was a challenge in itself (Austin Powers didn't have to contend with soft sand and 28 feet of machine).

Back on bitumen but with the map showing no campsites nearby we ended up pulling off the road and having, as we like to call them, a 'freebie'.

Only three cars went by before we were lights out so it was a quiet old stretch of road.

But I was a little bit nervous about the roadside sign indicating 'no hunting' and half expected someone to take pot shots at us during the night - just kidding - but no, really.

But there wasn't much of an alternative other than keeping on driving down a fairly rough, dark road where we couldn't see the potholes coming.

Neon central

We attempted to catch the Treasure Island pirate show tonight because we knew the kids would love it but a massive dust storm swept over Vegas this afternoon and the high winds meant the performance was cancelled.

So we hopped on the Deuce (bus) to Fremont St to see the latest show created for the amazing canopy of lights there.

All the neon lights (the ones you think of when you think of early-days Vegas) get turned off and then a roof stretching above a few city blocks comes alive with lights. Never ceases to blow us away.

Straight home to Bessie afterwards for a slightly earlier night.

Bessie was still getting rocked around by this crazy wind but at least the dust had cleared away a little bit.

Vegas baby

After spending the morning scrambling through the bush down to a stream below our campsite so Nath could help the boys practice their fishing technique, we headed for sin city and checked in at the only RV park on the strip - and what do you know, it's at Circus Circus!

The running joke for us is that this is the third time we've stayed at Circus Circus in one form or another - and no time has it ever been intentional. But we're never ones to shy away from a bargain so maybe that's got something to do with it.

At dusk we took the boys out for their first taste of this crazy town and managed to catch the Bellagio water show, Mirage's volcano explosion, the Venetian's gondolas, New York New York's roller coaster and obviously Circus Circus' Adventure Dome.


Funnily enough their favourite things were:

(for Indy) - a dude dressed up as the red angry bird.

(for Dash) - the massive motorbike front sticking out of the Harley Davidson Cafe.

The kids' discussion following that...

Dash: "Who crashed that there Indy?"

Indy: "It was a giant."

Very late night for all...

Route 66 and Radiator Springs

A short distance from our campsite, along the largest uninterrupted section of original Route 66, we paused in Seligman where every store in town is making the most of kids' fascination with Radiator Springs of 'Cars' fame.

That, along with the 1950s cars the nostalgic locals cruise down the street in, gives the town a very fun vibe.

It mattered little that the beat up old racing car looked nothing like Lightning McQueen; that's still what the kids yelled when they saw eyes painted on its windshield.

Then a car only loosely resembling the movie's Hudson Hornet cruised by and Dash screamed "Doc!"

We stopped for a shake and burger at Delgadillo's Snow Cap, a surviving relic, before continuing on to the Hoover Dam.

Since we last visited, a massive bridge has been built over the Colorado River and the Interstate now bypasses the dam completely. Traffic congestion is no longer an issue and anybody who wants to see the dam now gets views not previously possible because the new bridge, an impressive structure itself, sits parallel with it.

Our campsite for the night was a $10 a night State Park on Lake Mead called Las Vegas Bay.

Grand Canyon South Kaibab Trail

We pulled out of Mather Campground this morning and found a park at the Grand Canyon South Rim
Visitors Centre. There was a lot of cool stuff inside, including a movie on how the Canyon was formed and a great globe that spins in front of your eyes and tracks the movements of the land masses eons ago.

Standing back at the Rim, Nath explained to us where his walk had taken him the day before. It looked awesome and feeling a bit green with envy, I decided to go and do a small section while Nath and the kids played in Bessie.

So I caught an orange shuttle to the South Kaibab trailhead and set off down the zig-zags, stopping only a few hundred metres past Cedar Ridge, where I sat and enjoyed the tranquility and a sandwich at about 360 metres below the South Rim.

Nath was right, the ridgeline you follow really gives you a good sense of being 'in' the canyon, even without getting any further down into the depths like he had done the day before.

Not wanting to keep the boys waiting too long, I set a cracking pace back up and matched my downhill time (an hour each way).

The walk was only a bit over 5km return but offered really big rewards in terms of views for such a short distance.

Once back with the boys, we said Goodbye to the Canyon and drove as far as Seligman at the start of one of the longest remaining original sections of Route 66.

While some people might think overnighting only a hundred metres from an extremely active freight train line would be some kind of nightmare, the kids thought it was THE BEST THING EVER!!

Grand Canyon South Rim to River Return

(written by Nath)...

27km loop trail - down South Kaibab trail , cross the Colorado River, back up Bright Angel trail.

"Ha ha haaaa" ....my response to all the signs advising against hiking from the canyon rim to the river and back up in a day. Surely those signs are just there for old timers and overweight, unprepared seppos. Supposedly 250 hikers attempting the up and backer need to be airlifted out each year by the US National Parks Service. I figured it was a fabricated statistic; scare tactics.

5.30am - minus 2 degrees celsius - on the NPS shuttle bus, lied to the bus driver about my intentions.

6.00am - hit the trail...descended aggressively, dodging mule sh*t while taking in unbelievable vistas...the kind so immense that photos can't possibly capture them.

6.30am - passed 2 other hikers, one stripping down to full length lycra tights and sporting a cowboy hat, as if he will make it.

7.00 - 8.30am - can't help but take photos at every turn. So quiet, surprisingly so. Share trail with a deer for a while... so many cactii, wildflowers everywhere.

8.45am - reach the river, it's raging, magnificent - 2 hours ahead of schedule.

9.00 - 10.00am - shoes off, thermals off, feet in the river, it's cold.  Eat turkey sandwich, bananas, drink gatorade... and power bars (always thought they were for pansies, but now converted).

10.15am - begin ascent - 1.5km in altitude to climb over 13km - am pumped.

10.30am -12.30pm - finding the rhythm... hard to focus when canyon is so magnificent. Still, burning off everyone.

12.30-1.00pm - legs seizing up, cramps start in right leg, take Nurofen, now in the left leg.
F*ck, don't want to be airlifted (or mule lifted) out.

1.05pm - Put on headphones, only 'Eye of the Tiger' can get me there.

1.30pm - make it back to the rim.

Done.  7 hours, 30 mins.   A genuinely spectacular day hike.  Probably helped that every hike I had done in the last 5 years was carrying a 10-20kg child...just felt so light on my feet.
  
(written by Flea)...

Meanwhile, the kids and I slept in til 8.00am, caught the free shuttle at 10.00am, hiked a mere 3km (Dash did about 1.5km himself so I only had to carry him for half) and checked out the overlooks, bus hopping out to Hermit's Rest, or as the kids took to calling it "Kermit's rest".

On returning back to Bessie, we found Dad was already home ("What the ?") and then we were visited by some elk grazing through the campgrounds.