Meanwhile, back in the USA

Near Santa Cruz we found the Natural Bridges state park - a haven for Monarch butterflies. There were literally thousands of butterflies, though unfortunately due to the time of day and the temperature they were mostly static - still is was an amazing sight and we spent a bit of time there.













The next stop on the trip south was Monterey. The main attraction there, as recommended to us was the aquarium. It was open later on a Friday night, so rather than trying to fight the weekend crush we spent the last two hours before closing exploring the aquarium, though we could have spent a lot more time watching all the different types of creatures.













All kinds of creatures...













We had read a lot about Carmel-by-the-Sea being a beautiful town, and after seeing it didn’t want to leave. There were heaps of little stores - clothing, antique jewellery, boutiques and galleries along the tree-lined cobbled streets. One interesting feature driving in was the 6 way stop. If you have been to Havelock North, it would be like driving up to the village roundabout, but two lanes each way, and stop signs. It took a bit to work out whether we could go or not, but we got there in the end. We will definitely be going back!

After hesitantly leaving Carmel, we drove for a while before finding an amazing spot for some lunch. A picnic again, but this time there were dolphins. We were watching a bunch of surfers catching waves, then saw what we first thought were sharks... but no, it was a pod of about 15 dolphins playing in the waves and around the surfers. They were a bit far away to get close up pictures of them, but we didn’t do too badly.













The next stop for the night was Santa Barbara.