To LA 22-24 Oct

Thursday 22
We showered, laundered and ate breakfast before going for a walk on the beach that was just across a road from the campsite through some low dunes. There were some huge crashing waves which a few surfers were trying to tame but without great success. There seemed to be some sort of sand crab convention going on, with loads of them on the beach, many dead and many others burrowing into the soft sand under the retreating waves. The water was freezing but the sand really warm, the sun was shining and a warm wind was blowing from the land out to sea trailing lines of white, dry, powdery sand down onto the darker wet sand. It was blissful. On down the coast we went toward Santa Barbara. We stopped in a park in Los Alamos to make sandwiches and sat watching ground squirrels going about their business; they are at least twice the size of tree squirrels and have a grey coat with white spots and a white neck, apart from that they look and behave very much like the old grey squirrels back home except, of course, that they live in holes in the ground. Our camper van was parked in the shade of a huge oak tree which was dropping the most enormous acorns I have ever seen, they made a drum like sound as they bounced off the van, poor old Chicken Little would have been frantic! Then on further south, all the names are now Spanish (from the time when this was a Mexican territory) and there are loads of palm trees and dry brown hills interspersed with immaculate vinyards with precisely parallel rows and silver glinting wires, I assume to keep the birds away. We stopped at El Capitan State Beach to try to find a camp site, but they were charging $35 for sites without water or electrics so we moved on and are now camped at Cachuma Lake, 18 miles North of Santa Barbara, on a peninsula out into the lake and Celso is dying to go fishing....

Friday 23
Whilst eating breakfast we watched the ground squirrels scurrying around and woodpeckers collecting acorns and then sticking them into predrilled holes in an old oak tree. Of course we had to go and investigate the lake and so down to the boat ramp we went and then along the shore of the lake which was about 10ft down on its high point, (we found out later that that is normal for the end of the summer). The sun was blazing down and reflecting off the white stones, 3 red headed turkey vultures looked down on us menacingly waiting for us to die. We spent about 1 hr walking along the shore and collecting old fishing line and rubbish! By the end we had two full plastic bags and armfulls of wound up fishing line and we stopped in the shade for a drink. Tris and I spotted a big reddish brown bird that swooped down to the water as if to catch a fish but it came up with nothing, we didn't know what it was until later but it turns out we had seen our first Bald Eagle, a juvenile, they don't get their white heads until they reach about 5 years old. We decided to take all the rubbish we had collected to the Nature Centre. At the Nature Centre the volunteer was a bit suprised by our 'gift', we told him he should make an exhibit of it all to show the amount of rubbish collected from a 1/4 mile portion of the lake shore, but he wasn't convinced and just brought out a black plastic bin bag. The Centre was actually pretty good, it had lots of animals that you might see in the area (this is where we found out about the lake levels and the juvenile bald eagle) and it had a one way mirror out to a bird table so we were able to identify all the birds we had seen in the area including red winged blackbirds, American robins, several different finches, blue birds, quails (with their silly little top knots) and lots of sparrows and starlings. We decided to stay another night and moved our camper van to a spot right next to the holey oak tree to watch the woodpeckers better. I spent an age trying to get close to the ground squirrels to try and get a photo but with little success as you can see from the photos, their coats are so different from their tree dwelling cousins with white spots all over, but I don't think I caught that very well. Celso went off to fish for a couple of hours at dusk whilst Tris and I did some maths, again Celso was unlucky but he left some lines out over night.

Sat 24
Celso was up at the crack of dawn to do some weight lifting (!) and then go down to check his lines. He was back soon afterwards to get the camera as he told us he had caught a 'big one'. Tris and I quickly dressed and ran to catch him up to see 'The Wonder', Celso had already invited another guy; who was just about to go fishing in his boat; to come along and to have 'The Prize' if he wanted it. Poor old Mr Whiskers, a 2 to 2.5 ft catfish, was hauled up for photos and then the other guy took him away (and you know the rest...) Celso was a happy chappy and of course had to stay and cast another line; he said he'd be back in about 20mins, Tris and I went back to the van to eat and get ready to go as we wanted to get to LA to the campsite on Dockweiler Beach by 1pm because it is a first come first served campsite and we don't want to miss out. After an hour Tris went to fetch Celso who was suprised to find how much time had passed; Fishermen can't tell the time!? The drive to LA took us from the mountains of Santa Ynez back down to the coast; then more and more palm trees; more and more traffic; more and more lanes in the road and more and more pot holes; and then we reached the sign that said Los Angeles City Limits and we ground to a halt.
We eventually reached the beach and got the last cheap spot in the site, about 10m back from the beach. We spent 2 hours on the beach building Fort Robayo and protecting it from the waves, watching Pelicans dive into the sea, dolphins patrolling about 15m off the shore and wading birds (Curlews and Plovers I think) on the beach rushing out after each retreating wave to prod into the sand for a meal, and then running back up the beach to escape the next wave; they have really fast little legs so that it is almost a blur as they run.
After a shower, and a lot of cream to try to tone down my sunburnt cheeks, we ate a meal and then had a discussion about what we were going to do in our days here. After dark we went down to check on Fort Robayo to find her standing tall and strong and the waves further out than before.. we will have to check again in the morning.