I drove and initially the signs were not good dark cloudy and not very picturesque. The cloud was in low banks hovering just above the ground making it cooler and overcast. It reminded me a bit of the cloud we saw in New Zealand but not quite as low. We got to the coast fairly quickly and stopped to take a look. The clouds or fog blanketed everything at this point.
From various sources we had heard that there was a very picturesque bridge called Bixby bridge (not sure if it's named after Bill Bixby the guy who played Dr Banner in the incredible hulk but I doubt it) we were expecting something memorable like a fancy suspension bridge or some wrought iron construction. We passed a fairly nondescript reinforced concrete bridge with an arch to it without even realising it was Bixby Bridge. As it is it's an unremarkable concrete bridge, we didn't stop to take photos of it.
We paused a bit further down now that the fog/cloud was clearing a bit and saw some of the coast as well as some large birds of prey circling around using the thermals.
In order to counter the extreme disappointment of Bixby bridge we went round past Big Sur itself and into Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park where there is the McWay waterfall. Named for Christopher McWay a pioneer from New York. We first had to pay for parking using a system of posting a ten dollar bill into a small box in an envelope which had massive amounts of questions and tick boxes on it which you had to answer. We also discovered the local trails bar the waterfall look out were closed due to fire … our subconscious pyrokinetic powers strike again just thinking of visiting a place is enough to have it burn.
I also found a display on local birds which listed the birds I had seen circling above as Turkey Buzzards. We had a walk down to the falls it was a nice easy flat walk and at this point on the coast line the fog and mist was gone so it was completely clear and the view was spectacular.
The falls were set into a very pretty bay with deep green water. There were also lots of large patches of seaweed or kelp as a lot of the coastline of Big Sur seemed to have. The falls were not very high, and I could find no world height ranking for them which makes comparison with the falls in Yosemite impossible. I would say they were probably smaller than the bridalveil falls but without a world ranking I can't say definitively.
We walked up to the observation point further up from the falls lookout and took in some more view of the coastline then walked along the cliff a bit to see further up. The views were pretty good the deep green of the coast with the bright blue sea and sky was very picturesque.
We headed back to the car pausing to take in the high point of the stop … the pelton wheel.
A while back the McWay creek had been used as a hydroelectric plant using the water to turn a pelton wheel (An impulse turbine one of the most efficient forms of water wheel using newtons second law to extract energy from a jet of fluid) interestingly the one-piece cast impulse turbine was invented by Samuel Knight of Sutter Creek (where we visited the gold mine earlier in the trip) but this chap Pelton made it more efficient.
The hydroelectric plant no longer operates and now all that remains is a little hut with a Pelton wheel inside. This was pretty underwhelming, it's more interesting now from having looked it up on Wikipedia to find out some details on what the thing actually is beyond just a water wheel.
After the Pelton wheel we knew nothing else was going to compare so we headed back to the hotel. As we passed Big Sur and towards Monterey the fog/cloud rolled in again, this time seeming more intense than the last time a small corridor of visibility just above the road.
We got back had some beers and watched a James Bond Marathon. Rounding the evening off with late night nachos and for me quesadillas name after a band I've never heard of.
Tomorrow we head back to San Francisco for the last few days of our trip, while it's not over yet it's starting to wind up.
