Today (Sunday) was a day-trip down to Monterey via coach. It wasn’t the most successful, largely due to a late start from the tour company and it being possibly the busiest day at the Acquarium.
The bus (driven by a John Lee Hooker lookalike, who tried to sung Whitney Houston in the way home) took Highway 1 for most of the trip revealing some interesting coastline in California.
Enroute, we saw quite a few spouts from Grey Whale in the distance. They were migrating South for breeding season down in Mexico. Although hard to judge, the spouts were massive given their distance. You could see one every few minutes for the entire trip of 2.5 hours!
The Monterey Bay Acquarium is huge.
(Map)
First stop was the sea-otter exhibition (of course!). This was a tank covered by 3 levels, so even with the crowd you could still get a good view.
Jellies – the lighting in the tanks was particularly clever…
… a very good acquarium with lots to see for all ages.
We then headed further south and took the 17-Mile Drive: a private stretch off road that winds its way past more coastline, redwood forests, ridiculously expensive housing ($10s of millions, & exclusive golf clubs – including Pebble Beach.
Traffic along this single lane was like a car park… making it great for photos, but a late return to SF.
Carmel was the next stop where we just wandered through the very pretty but expensive main street (clearly targeting those that could afford to play at Pebble Beach).
That represented the end of the tour except for the very long & slow ride home in heavy traffic, finally getting back to town at about 9pm.
So, a quick walk down to the Pier again for a quick meal before bed.
Sleep-in tomorrow.