Framedlight

We went back to the cliffs at Montana de Oro for the setting sun. A fog bank still hung over the horizon and I was not optimistic, but then I was surprised by one of the most spectacular sunsets I have seen in years. In the following sequence of pictures you can see how the light changed. We had left the car in a car park at the far end of the cliffs so got back to the campsite in the dark. On going to our reserved space we saw that there were two cars in it and a tent had been put up. The owners were nowhere in sight. A visit to the warden was not fruitful, he said these things happen and to find ourselves another place. We had already scouted to see if there were any vacancies and it looked full to bursting, so he said just to squeeze ourselves in anywhere. We found a space not far from the bins where we could just back in between two trees. Having eaten we went back to our reserved space to find a group of college kids from Santa Barbara who said that there ...

We had not booked camp sites along the central coast of California as we were not sure of our timings. But after hunting around for a camping space the night before, we left Lake Lopez early the next morning and drove across to Montana de Oro State Park, on the coast roughly halfway between Los Angeles and Monterey to try and book in immediately. We were thrilled to see a pumpkin field on the way, so American! As we got near to the coast the mist came down and swirled around the eucalyptus trees that grew along the side of the road. There is a state run campsite right next to the sea. We saw the warden who said we could reserve a spot now, so we paid him, filled in a slip and attached it to the marker  post next to an empty site. Normal procedure. Comforted that we had somewhere to lay our heads we drove to a little car park next to Spooner's Cove and walked down onto the sand. The fog still hung around the horizon but there were a few people on the beach includ...