by Liz

Day’s mileage : 69

Day’s climb : 5,535 ft

Running total : 1,711

Some days it’s hard to believe everything that happened belonged all in the same day. Today was one of those days. We set off through vineyards around King City, moved into a US Army reservation, climbed up and over the remote Santa Lucia mountain range and finished with 20 miles along the magnificent Big Sur coastline. It was an interesting and pretty spectacular 70 miles.

The yellow dry grass on the hillsides creates a nature lover’s paradise as anything dark shows up in stark contrast. We saw jet black wild pigs, deer, a stoat, scores of ground squirrels scurrying about with their tails in the air, a bald eagle in flight and Philip had a fleeting but positive sighting of a bobcat.

We always knew today would be arduous. We had a total of 5,500 feet to climb and Komoot excelled itself- just climb the barrier and take this high security military road with signs warning us to keep out. Finding a way around that one added some miles to an already long day.

Highlights were two baby black pigs skipping down the yellow hillside to drink from a stream, the headwind being nowhere near as crazy as yesterday, the yellow, red, orange and purple wildflowers along the waysides, reaching the top of the mountain with amazing views, Philip seeing a bobcat, a friendly chat with a fellow traveller on the coast, and no mist and hardly any traffic along the Big Sur coast road.

Lowlights were the heat, swarms of flies and my aching legs on the approach to the mountain, before we’d even got to the start of the main climb of the day.

This evening we’re staying at the beautiful, family run Ragged Point Inn, with French doors in our room overlooking the huge ocean. It’s dark now but I can hear the waves breaking below. We treated ourselves to delicious fish mains in the restaurant. I rode along this stretch in 1987 with my 1.5 man tent and camping stove, staying in the national park hiker-biker campgrounds for $2 a night. A lot has changed in 38 years.