California, 11th November, Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, a waterfall and beaches

Another predawn rise saw us driving south back down Highway 1 to one of the finest destinations along the route. Parking on the land side of the road, we walked under the highway through a tunnel and came out on a footpath that runs a little way round the cliff giving a view of a beach straight from a fairytale, but with the unprepossessing name of McWay Cove .The saddle shaped cove had water of clear aqua and a waterfall (McWay Falls) plummeted onto the untouched beach below. Unfortunately there were no dawn colours, it just got light, but being alone there was worth the early wake up call.

McWay Cove is named after Christopher McWay, a man who homesteaded here in the 1870's. Julia Pfeiffer Burns was another early pioneer who came here in 1869 aged one. Julia lived with her parents until into her 40's looking after the family land, but finally married  John Burns in 1915 and went to live with him at Burns creek, just over the ridge from the beach. In later life she was befriended by Lathrop Brown, a former congressman, and his wife Helen Hooper Brown who bought the original McWay Saddle Rock Ranch and built a house, Waterfall House, on the promontory overlooking the waterfall. They wanted the solitude of this isolated place (the highway was not completed until 1937). Julia became caretaker of the house when the Browns were away.

The Browns used this rather sumptuous home as a holiday retreat and in 1961 Helen Brown gave it and the rest of the ranch to the state, stipulating that the house should be used as a museum and that 'the land west of the highway should not be marred by further construction'. The state could not afford to convert the house into a museum and it was finally torn down. But the land still remains as the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park and this beautiful beach stands undeveloped and unreachable except by sea. My thanks to http://www.pelicannetwork.net/bigsur.html   for all this information. Please visit their website, if you are interested.

Here are some more views from the cliff top.

The early start had whetted our appetites so we headed to the Big Sur bakery and had a good breakfast of pancakes and coffee. Then we headed off to Pfeiffer Beach, which is situated a little further north from McWay Cove.

We got  to Pfeiffer beach through trees and then past a little lagoon. Just off shore there was a dramatic rock feature with an arch which the sea was pumping through. It was still cloudy and damp.

We came across more patches of purple sand and unfortunately a dead sea lion pup.

The beach was practically deserted and we walked the length of it, coated up against the cold.

Then it was time to drive up north, past more coves and over the Bixby Bridge, one of the tallest single span concrete bridges in the world. The road could have been taken through a tunnel instead, but it was decided to build a bridge so that the views of the ocean could be seen along the length of the Big Sur. The bridge is 320ft high and construction started in 1931, giving work at the time of the depression.

Here are more photographs showing views from Highway 1 going north, now in Molero State Park, towards Point Lobos and Monterey.