A day near Carmel, CA, USA
Being close to the ocean is a huge privilege of living in California, however, walking along the beach for hours is not a cup of tea for everyone. For those people... there is hiking with ocean views!
There is a ridge of hills that stretches along the Pacific coast here in Bay area. Those hills are part of a number of parks, reserves, etc, and interspersed with a network of trails. We have ventured to explore one such trail not far from Carmel, CA.
A narrow yellowy road was taking us away from the breeze of the ocean and deeper into the hills.
Very soon the ocean was just a stripe of blue far away, and all we saw were rolling hills all around us:
Up and up we went:
Until finally we reached the top of the hill and saw the great expanse of the water in front of us:
The views are always the best from the top :)
Hiking near the ocean is not for the faint at heart. Unless you wake up and hit the trail early, you are faced with walking up completely exposed terrain, under the blazing sun. I think the difference of K's facial expression on those 2 photos explains the point the best:
In such harsh and overly sunny conditions there aren't a lot of flowers, but we did find some very tough ones!
They even managed to bloom, how awesome is that?
After the hike we drove down the coast, going for occasional walks on hidden beaches:
On that day we were blessed with seeing a lot of marine wildlife. We were lucky to see the whales during their feeding time, when they were especially active:
And on one hidden beach that we have visited, we saw whales, dolphins, sea lions, otters and a whole bunch of different birds:
Pictures do not express all the awe we experienced when seeing those animals, I hope the video below does a better job...
A gorgeous sunset marked the end of a perfect day... Gotta love California... :-)
There is a ridge of hills that stretches along the Pacific coast here in Bay area. Those hills are part of a number of parks, reserves, etc, and interspersed with a network of trails. We have ventured to explore one such trail not far from Carmel, CA.
A narrow yellowy road was taking us away from the breeze of the ocean and deeper into the hills.
Very soon the ocean was just a stripe of blue far away, and all we saw were rolling hills all around us:
Up and up we went:
Until finally we reached the top of the hill and saw the great expanse of the water in front of us:
The views are always the best from the top :)
Hiking near the ocean is not for the faint at heart. Unless you wake up and hit the trail early, you are faced with walking up completely exposed terrain, under the blazing sun. I think the difference of K's facial expression on those 2 photos explains the point the best:
In such harsh and overly sunny conditions there aren't a lot of flowers, but we did find some very tough ones!
They even managed to bloom, how awesome is that?
After the hike we drove down the coast, going for occasional walks on hidden beaches:
On that day we were blessed with seeing a lot of marine wildlife. We were lucky to see the whales during their feeding time, when they were especially active:
And on one hidden beach that we have visited, we saw whales, dolphins, sea lions, otters and a whole bunch of different birds:
Pictures do not express all the awe we experienced when seeing those animals, I hope the video below does a better job...
Click to viewA gorgeous sunset marked the end of a perfect day... Gotta love California... :-)