On our mini-holiday in Northern California last month, we spent one day driving south along the shore on Highway 1. We’d intended to get down to Big Sur, but it was lunchtime before we even made it to Santa Cruz, and the geography was clear: making it to Big Sur was going to mean pushing it really hard and not having much time to relax and enjoy ourselves.

So we decided to scrap Big Sur and spend a little time in Santa Cruz, including a leisurely lunch on the boardwalk and just wandering around in the brilliant sunshine. It’s a lovely coastal town, and the scenery is only enhanced by the weird way the fog forms a sort of wall just inland.

The best part, maybe, was the large flock (school? group?) of sea lions (or seals? not sure of the biological differences here, to be honest…) hanging out on a little shelf under the boardwalk.

Very cool. Loved the sounds they make too. And Nyan was totally transfixed too:

So no, we didn’t make it to Big Sur in the end. Didn’t even make it down to Monterey. No complaints at all though.