margotim's Wednesday April 4th, 2012

Decided to stay another day in Morro Bay so we could check out the southern half of Highway 1 and Morro Rock. The first number of miles up the coast was punctuated by little seaside towns with holiday houses and hotels. The beaches are very exposed and it seems the weather is usually cool with high winds off the sea. The sand is dark grey and overall not very inviting.
Just before we started to climb into the mountains we came across a colony of elephant seals lazing on the beach and undergoing their annual malt. There were hundred of them lying in the sun. A boardwalk had been built along the top of the dunes behind the beach that allows you to see then really close up. There we lots of pups, born a couple of months back, playing and swimming in the shallow water. We would have missed this if not for deciding to back track and see what we missed yesterday.
After lunch we drove over to Morro Rock. It was incredibly windy, and unpleasant out of the car, with dust and sand blasting in the gale. We walked around to the lee side of the rock where it was much calmer. Sea gulls were nesting high up in the crags of the rock, otters we feeding so close to shore you could see their faces and chipmunks were darting in and out of their burrows. (Warning, science content), Morro Rock in the remnant plug of a volcano that erupted 200 million years ago. It is one of nine volcanic plugs that line the Los Osos Valley between here and San Luis Obispo. It's 177 meters high, just to give the photos some perspective.
It was going to happen, as inevitably as sun sets over Morro Rock, Tim bought a guitar. Not for himself mind you but for our mate Adrain who was looking or a Telecaster. Now he has one, we just have to get it home safely. Shouldn't be a problem.
We watched the sun set over Morro Rock and than drove a little up the beach and watched it set all over again.