Wild about the Pacific Coast Highway

What do you think you're going to find along the Pacific Coast Highway in central California? Surfers, elegant B&Bs, wineries, glamorous mansions and glorious golf courses? Well yes, but Mike Gerrard discovers the one thing you really can't help but notice, is the wildlife!

It was Southern California. It was Spring. We didn't have the Beach Boys playing on the radio but we were driving up the Pacific Coast Highway, which has been called the 'Best Free Attraction in the United States' and one of the country's greatest drives. So why did my fingers tingle with the cold, and why did we have to keep running back to the car to warm up?

It didn't seem to be bothering the family of sea otters that was playing in the no-doubt freezing waters of Morro Bay. They were wrapping themselves in sea kelp to keep warm, turning over in the water to pull it around themselves like someone stealing a duvet. From time to time they would float on their backs doing nothing but looking around with that slightly started look that otters have, as if they'd only just discovered that not everyone's an otter.

We'd expected the spectacular scenery of the Pacific Coast Highway, but not the wonderful wildlife. We'd just finished lunch at the harbour in Morro Bay where we'd watched two sea lions swimming slowly up and down as we had our clam chowder, and a few days earlier in San Diego we'd seen whole colonies of sea lions just hanging out on some life buoys, while on our way back from a whale-watching cruise that had found grey whales and pods of dolphins. At the Bolsa-Chica Eco Reserve right on the Highway and just a few miles from the urban jungle that is south Los Angeles, we'd watched pelicans, curlews and delicate white egrets, and been deafened by the squawks of hundreds of nesting sea birds.

So by the time we got to Morro Bay, almost halfway between LA and San Francisco, we were beginning to get used to the sightings of animals and birds, on land and at sea. In Santa Barbara we were walking along the pier and wondered why people were lining the railings looking over the side. Had someone fallen in?

"It's the whale," a woman told us. "He was on the news last night." Sure enough, right there in the harbour not 50 yards out from the shore, the back of a whale was occasionally breaking the surface. "He came last year too," the woman went on, handing us her binoculars. Every year at this time thousands of grey whales can be seen migrating off the California coast from Mexico to Alaska, though not usually swimming right into a busy harbour like Santa Barbara. "They say it's a young male, just comes in for a few days to feed, hangs out for a while then carries on up the coast."

We carried on up the coast too, heading past Morro Bay to spend two nights in Cambria where we'd pre-booked a tour of nearby Hearst Castle. As we were staying at the Pelican Cove Inn we weren't surprised to see pelicans flying over the hotel, though next morning the zebras were a bit of a shock. Not flying over, but even grazing in a pasture alongside the Pacific Coast Highway it was a startling sight, like seeing wildebeest out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window. What the...???

We later learned they were remnants of what had been the largest private zoo in the world, when William Randolph Hearst was busy turning Hearst Castle into one of the most startling homes ever built. "No," said our guide, "you weren't seeing things. There are still zebra on the estate, along with Barbary sheep, deer, Roosevelt elk and a few other things. When Mr Hearst had his zoo here there were also reindeer and kangaroos, lions, cheetahs, leopards, jaguar, bears, chimpanzees, an elephant and lots of other creatures too."

It's the unexpected moments that fuel our wanderlust, that keep us travelling. I hadn't expected to enjoy Hearst Castle, but it was a wonderful place, a great mixture of the tasteful, the over-the-top, the bizarre and the beautiful. It was perfectly at home in southern California. So too were some of the most amazing creatures we saw on the whole of our trip along the entire length of America's Pacific Coast: the elephant seals at Piedras Blancas Beach.

Elephant seals are the kinds of creatures which, like kangaroos and ostriches, seem to have come out of someone's weird imagination. Males can grow to over 16 feet in length - about 10% of which seems to be nose - and weigh almost 9,000 lbs. That's the weight of three Mini Coopers.

At Piedras Blancas Beach, four miles north of Hearst Castle, a colony of Northern Elephant Seals has established itself over the last twenty years. In 1990 a handful of seals were noticed in this small sandy cove, a few yards off the Highway. In the spring of 1991, almost 400 elephant seals turned up at the beach. In 1996, almost 1,000 pups were born at Piedras Blancas, and as all pups return to their birthplace in order to mate when they're adults, the colony has simply grown and grown to, well, elephantine proportions.

A platform has been built behind the beach to keep man and beast apart, though quite frankly anyone who got between two elephant seals who were about to mate would get what they deserved. As it is, just a few feet separate you from these awe-inspiring creatures, and there are docents on hand to answer questions.

"There have been 4,000 pups born here since Christmas this year," one tells us. "Lots of the adults have now left. January's about the best time to come, though it does get kinda crowded. This time of year they're starting to leave the pups to fend for themselves. The parents swim back out to sea and the pups are left here, unable to swim or to feed themselves."

"They can't swim?", I say, astonished, though I suppose it's like expecting babies to walk at two days old.

"No, they can't swim for the first 3 months then they start to go in at low tide and teach themselves. When they're suckling, their mother's milk is so rich in fat that they put on 100 lbs a day. Then they live off this 'cos until they can swim and catch things, they can't eat. It's a little quiet now, they've all done their morning swim and are just lolling around. You should come back tomorrow morning about 8-9 o'clock, then you'll see them learning to swim."

So we did. We stayed for an hour, and would have stayed longer, but the Big Sur drive was beckoning that day, the most spectacular part of the Pacific Coast Highway. But it was going to take a lot to beat the wildlife we'd seen so far.