Everything was dry again this morning but to make up for it the wind has started to blow, gusting up to 20 mph, but a steady 12 mph straight at us, it was going to be a tough but beautiful day.

However a nice downhill start almost lulled us into a false sense of security, almost, then the ups started. We continued along the coast road, visibility was excellent, the clearest we have had. With the strong winds the sea had a very big swell and huge waves were everywhere (in the sea that is).

We were quickly into a very long uphill, but at the top we were rewarded with some lovely views up the coast. We carried on like this for some time until we arrived at Carmel Heights, after which the volume of traffic increased substantially, then came Carmel where we cycled up probably the busiest road we have been on with only a small shoulder, horrible cycling here. As we rolled over the top, a short descent and we turned off onto a cycle path and quieter roads, much better.

Entering Monteray next, this seemed a nice town but with huge social and wealth differences, there seemed to be more homeless here that we have seen before, along with a lot of very rich people as well.

Hunger forced us to buy a McDonalds, in our defence it is only the second one we have had on the whole trip.

As the riding for the next 17 miles follows a beach front cycle path we decided to carry on and avoid camping in the Monteray town park (nice place but a lot of theft).

Leaving Monteray

The next section of riding was really lovely, next to beautiful sand dunes and native plants showing autumnal and winter colours.

This section flew by, as we neared Marina where the private campground was, I called into a small motel and a room here was only $9.00 more than the campground! we stopped here, and it was a very nice motel.
I also found the Grocery Outlet store and was almost surprised at the slightly more reasonable food prices, this is now our store of choice.

We finished the day watching the tv, again I am very shocked just how biased CNN is, irrespective of whether you like the man or not, surely CNN’s job is to factually report news? only I saw very little news reporting at all it was more like a highbrow gossip show.