As we only had a short 20 mile day today a long overdue lie in almost took place (well maybe an extra 30 minutes). We sat down with Rita for a lovely english breakfast, thank you, the first one since July and also tried Persimmon, a lovely refreshing semi sweet taste, try one today (make sure it is ripe!). With nice tea and coffee we chatted away for a while before the campground called us onwards.

Seafront rollercoaster

Pier and beach Santa Cruz

We said our farewell and made our way back to downtown and the river. Here there is a cycle path down to the sea front and along the coast. It followed a very zig zag of a path, past the funfair (closed so no rides for us today) next to the beach, past the pier and followed the clifftop road to its conclusion at Natural Bridges, where there was; well a natural bridge.

As we were on a cycle we could continue where cars feared to tread, up past the Monarch Butterfly Reserve but I think they were all still asleep (it is too cold this early).

Then we switched to a different cycle path for a mile or two before finally having to rejoin the good old highway 1, it is a much quieter road here than before Santa Cruz.

View north of Santa Cruz

The coastline was again beautiful, with plenty of undulations to keep us on our toes. A particularly nice beach forced us to stop for a break.

A emergency stop happened when a large sign proclaimed Pie Farm, I entered all excited ready to purchase that pie but was shocked at the $24.00 price tag for an organic pie, it was just a very plain looking pie, no gold leaf to be seen anywhere. I walked out crestfallen.

It continued like this for 29.5 miles, not the 20 we had expected! I blame Janet and her addition skills. A very enjoyable days riding though.

The KOA campground proved to be very nice indeed, the best one we have been on. As a bonus they charged us a special rate of $25.00 as well. Slightly more than a pie, in fact I will use the standard organic pie as a unit of measure from now on. For example to fly home without a bike will cost 12 pies.

As the light faded we cooked a pasta meal, making our own sauce. It was very nice indeed, worth the extra weight.