We left Montana D'Oro State Park and headed up California Highway 1. This is a famous drive as the road hugs the cliff edges with wonderful views of the ocean below. Mind you as the driver, I only got to see bits of it as the road is narrow and twisting so it needed a lot of attention. On the way we stopped to see Elephant seals on the beach. These are only juveniles as the adults arrive in December.



We camped among the Redwoods at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park.

And this is where we celebrated Lucy's 5th birthday. Of course she had to have a cake and Gilly made a beautiful chocolate cake in the truck oven.

That afternoon we went out on a drive along the coast once more and saw an amazing sight. On the road we were in brilliant sunshine with blue sky above us. Less than 200m below us was the ocean, but it was covered in a blanket of cloud as far as the eye could see, literally just resting on top of the waves. It was like the view from an airplane above the clouds.



The following day we headed up to Monterey and visited the aquarium. Gilly was disappointed the sea otter exhibit was closed as she had been looking for them along the coast. However even better than seeing them in the exhibit, we saw some in the sea from the viewing platform outside the aquarium. The kids loved the aquarium and there were some great exhibits. The tuna they had in there were massive and just what I would have loved to have caught on fishing trips of old. However the jelly fish exhibit was perhaps the most impressive.



As we push on up the coast it is getting cooler but the beaches are still very beautiful.

We had heard that driving in San Francisco was a nightmare and not something you should do in a large vehicle so we approached the city with some trepidation as we needed to drive through it to get to an RV park that was near to transport into the city centre. As it happened driving was a breeze and before we knew it we were crossing the Golden Gate Bridge.