North along Highway 1

We arrived at El Capitan state beach and grabbed a great ocean view RV spot. Although it sounds crazy, travelling is pretty tiring as you’re always moving from place to place, so we took our kindles down to the beach for a rest! We spotted a pod of dolphins about 100m off shore which was awesome. After watching a great sunset with more dolphins, Alex went to bed at 1930! Santa Barbara had taken it out of him.

The next morning I headed down to the beach for a run which was great. The dolphins were back and there were only a couple of other people on the beach. Alex did the bleep test in the car park! I think I chose the wiser exercise option.

After breakfast we headed off in the direction of Morro bay. Our lonely planet guide suggested we divert to Avila and check out the fisherman’s pier. What a great recommendation this turned out to be. Sea lions everywhere and we got our first sighting of sea otters.

After a quick stop to grab a coffee and cake we got to morro bay state park. We had read we could kayak in morro bay and a short while later we found ourselves kayaking amongst sea lions, sea otters and pelicans. Deciding we had done enough exercise for the day we turned to our guide book again as it had mentioned we must try garlic fries from a specific place. They were delicious!! Avoiding the temptation to have another portion, we headed around the corner to Morro rock and it was there that we read signs that sharks inhabit the waters! I’m glad we read this after we got out of our kayak!!

The next day we properly started our trip on highway 1 as it hugs the coastline. What a cool road! The first stop was to see the elephant seals who hang out for a few miles along the Californian coast. We could smell them before we saw them after getting out the RV. They were enormous!! They are so funny as they all lie on top of each other. There was a volunteer guide who told us that the ones fighting in the water were the young males. The big males were out at sea and not back for a few months. We went for a walk and were surrounded by Californian condors. Watching them land on the beach was amazing as they were so smooth!

Heading further north we did a walk called ragged point. It was so steep down to the beach! We didn’t see much but it was fun all the same. We stopped at plaskett creek campground and we got the last space available, then headed to the beach and watched the surfers catching the rolling waves in the bay.

The next morning we had an early run on the beach. It was very misty! After weaving along highway 1 we got to Carmel. This felt a bit too posh for Ronda so after a quick stroll we grabbed an enormous cake and headed to Monterey. Our RV park was near a golf course so after dodging the golf balls we made the 90 minute walk into town. Most of it was along the waterfront so not a hardship. We had intended on doing a scuba dive as a little refresher before the Galapagos but at $250 each for only a 1 tank dive we passed. Instead we hit the happy hour that the Monterey bars had to offer. Having googled ‘best happy hour bars in Monterey’ before we arrived we were armed with a list and we ended up doing a bit of a bar crawl. One bar we went was hosting a radio show which was fun. We didn’t get asked to join the chat on it! We ended up staying there for the evening, getting our last food and beer order in just before the end of happy hour (making sure we told the kind waitress that we were on a long trip so needed to save the pennies)!

Our RV park offered free laundry! When travelling there is nothing better than having clean clothes so in the morning we maxed out and did 3 loads. It turned into an admin day and we didn’t head into town until early afternoon. We enjoyed a nice drink on the waterfront (happy hour obvs) to finish the day and toast our penultimate evening in Ronda.

The next morning we went for a run along the waterfront and treated ourselves to breakfast. I had eggs Benedict and it was huge and so delicious! Today was our last full day in Ronda. We wanted to get nearer to San Fran as we had to drop her off by 11am so it would be an early start. We drove towards Santa Cruz and ended up at sunset campground state park. It said it was booked out online but that had been the case with lots of campsites along our trip and there were always cancellations. As luck would have it someone had just cancelled. After parking up and heading to the beach the mist and clouds came in making it pretty rank. Being brits we didn’t give up on a little cloud and soon enough the sun was shining.

Before too long it was time to start parking up the last 6 weeks of stuff. We had accumulated a lot! We did have time to watch the sunset which was amazing. On the way back to the RV there was a massive owl in the tree above us which was amazing. We hadn’t seen any on our trip so far, only heard them. That evening we batch cooked loads of food ahead of camping for the next 4 days and we had to use everything up!

The next morning we set off early to San Fran. After trying to spot the cheapest petrol we soon found ourselves back at El Monte RV park. The handover all happened in about a minute. After a quick goodbye and a pat on the dashboard Ronda was driven off to be cleaned ahead of her next guests. RV’ing around western USA had been amazing. Was it cheaper than driving a car and booking hotels etc? We don’t know, but it allowed us so much more flexibility and we never had to use public loos! However, after 6 weeks we were ready to escape those 4 walls and start our next adventure.