Garrapata State Park

Just of the side of the road on Highway one in California we find this place of incredible natural beauty. It's about a 90 minute drive south of San Francisco, somewhat near Monterey. Right before you get to the park, there are mansions of the rich and famous in the town of Carmel. One doesn't have to ask why they want to live here.

Mist rises from the Pacific ocean and showers the hills in dew. This gives rise to lush greenery and a pleasant climate. For the most part, a light Spring jacket is all one needs along with a good pair of shoes if you're hiking.

The rocks take a beating from countless waves and erosion. It's amazing that they preserved this place for everyone to enjoy instead of privatizing it like most of the coastline. Anywhere they can build they built and places which were unstable or had poor access to fresh water were left to nature.

We did not see any bears in California, but they do exist. I've travelled there a few times now and we look forward to our next visit. It is the most incredible state in the union and one just has to go there to see why it is the most populated one too.

The beach created by the erosion of the cliffs was peaceful. This isn't a swimming beach as the waters in Central California are far too cold, especially in mid May. A few brave people were swimming in Carmel and there are always surfers wearing wetsuits playing in the surf.

Beaches stretch for miles along the coastline. There were fields of flowers in bloom and on some of the less accessible beaches families of seals were enjoying time together.

It's hard to describe this place and I am at a loss of words. We always like to travel to less populated areas where nature dominates the landscape. There is nothing here until one would get to Japan thousands of miles away.

We spent hours walking up and down the many paths along the coast taking in as much as we could. There were so many different types of flora and fauna we aren't quite used to up in central Canada and it's always nice being somewhere that isn't below zero half the year.

Cliffs, rocks, ocean, fields of shrubs. This is the California we know and love.

The trail between the hill and the sea is a path that just begs one to follow. What is around the corner? Perhaps more cliffs, rocks and ocean. The waves were especially loud here.

The pictures are starting to look the same, we took so many it was one of those days where the batteries on our devices died. For those still reading and paying attention, I finally got a decent Camera again on a Black Friday sale. We were sick and tired of having tiny sensors and no optical zoom lenses with us and are headed out on some extraordinary vacations soon.

The type of Camera we got is a sony zv-E10 it should be able to capture some of the natural beauty and it has swappable lenses. We mostly take photos of scenery and animals so it is going to be fun to further develop our hobby of travel, photography and blogging. It's also a vlogging camera so we will be making lots of videos.

The water had so many different shades which just need to be captured better. The sea is rich in life and birds can safely nest on these rocks.

Flowers must bloom here year round or we are lucky to come in the spring. This looks like a lily of some sort, it was growing in the shade and would look perfect just about anywhere.

I'll leave you with my favourite photo in the park. We managed to catch a flock of Pelicans who were clearly enjoying the sights better than we were having a birds eye view.

Thanks for reading and have a great week.

All these photos were taken with an s22 or iphone 13 pro and are unfiltered.

[//]:# ([//]:# (!worldmappin 36.45138 lat -121.92701 long Garrapata State Park d3scr))