Sunday, December 16, 2012

Over the Mountain ... (Part 7 of 7): Coming down and merging with the PCH

by Steve Reiss (Dalmdad Landscape Photography - www.dalmdad.com and https://www.facebook.com/Dalmdad.)

Nacimiento-Fergguson Road (NFR), heading down to the Pacific Ocean: The last bits of the NFR experience are downhill from the high-country of the Santa Lucia Range to sea level at the Pacific Ocean and the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH, CA-1) in rugged Big Sur country.


Views towards the Pacific Ocean from the high-country





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Views of the coastal parks, as NFR winds its way down to sea level.









PCH heading north towards Carmel along Big Sur Coast


PCH heading south towards Cambria along Big Sur Coast

Looking down on PCH


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When you reach the Pacific Ocean, you can either head south towards the Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Preserve and Cambria or north towards Big Sur, Carmel, and Monterey.

A recommendation would to head south just a little bit to the town of Gorda, overlooking the Pacific Ocean.  A wonderful restaurant, the Whale Watcher Cafe, is waiting for you.


Though the Whale Watcher gets some pretty awful reviews at yelp, we never had a bad experience there.  Indeed, this was one of the first places we ate at when we drove cross-country for the first time.  Yes, the prices are steep, but this is a very remote location and we never left feeling we were extorted.  The burgers and the nachos are great and can be eaten while looking out for passing whales.

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