Santa Cruz is a pretty laid back place. We headed straight for the coast when we arrived and walked the length of the wharf and the boardwalk. We had a beer with some locals at the Riva bar and tried our hand at a nearly unplayable table ice hockey game at the arcades.
We’d just missed happy hour in the bars and restaurants, but it was happy hour for Nicola when we found a family of sea lions chilling out below the wharf deck. Apparently they get together at the same time everyday (6 ish), yelp continuously and pass out. We’ve since heard sea lions yelping at some point along every stretch of the coast, we’ve seen them lounging about on rocks, and Nicola’s convinced they keep bobbing their heads out of the ocean (if she’s not already decided they’re a whale).
For the second day we were content with mooching further around Santa Cruz. The coastal walk from Natural Bridges to the wharf seems to be a popular trail for cyclists and runners, but we snail paced it to get some photos and take in the views – take a look through the album.
Surfing is massive here and on the coastal trail there’s a memorial dedicated to those who caught their last wave as well as a small surfing museum at Lighthouse Point. There’s some great spots to watch the pros in action or falling in, and we even saw someone surfing pregnant. Maybe it helps with the balance.
We also went to the Santa Cruz Mountain Brewery in the evening and did the same coastal walk back towards the wharf during sunset. It’s been a pretty relaxing few days.
This sounds totally rad.
Totally. Wait until you see the colossal crab cake and poke bowl.
Hi Paul. Looks like you are having your work cut out. Getting Nic hand out of the bus seat!!!!!!
Enjoy
Ha! Nicola was laughing her head off and my eyes were bulging thinking we were going to have to cut through the seat! The bus was out of service when we got off and the driver looked like he wanted to get away pretty quickly, so who knows what would have happened 😀
Great photos. Is that a Sea Lion on a surfboard ?? ?
Here’s a fun fact – on the placards that we saw today to help identify the ocean animals, it said: look out for an object that looks like a log – this will be an otter, look out for an object that looks like a sausage, this will be a seal. Who knew it was that simple? And it wasn’t kidding.
I can just hear Nic whooping at the sea lions! Gorgeous pics! You are obviously having the time of your lives ?Xxx
Ha! She’s a bugger for whooping xxx
Sounds like your having a fab time! Ian and I always say you should see and do as much as life allows!!!! Pics look brill!!! X
Yep! Cheers, we are. We’ll keep seeing things and we’ll keep taking them 😀 x