29th June 2016 - Shelter Cove CA - Kms to Date 596

Kms today 0

We spent the day at Shelter Cove with the plan to walk along the Black Sands beach.  This trail goes for over100kms along the Lost Coast but we would only have time for a couple of miles.  First we  had to get to the trail head through the older more established residential areas of Shelter Cove. The beach had many warning signs about the dangers of rogue waves washing you off the shore or a tsunami doing the same! The sand was loose under foot and hard going.

The black sands beach of the Lost Coast.

Some way along the beach we noticed a lot of birds congregating and on closer examination we found a dead whale beached on the shore. Some falcons and crows were feeding off the carrion.

One very dead and rotting whale.

We climbed on a large rock at the edge of the surf and got a great view of the whole bay.  There were troupes of campers hiking back out of the King Range Park and we watched them trudge past from our eyrie.

Happy campers trudging along the black sands of the Lost Coast.

When we got back to the trail head we met a couple waiting for their celebrant so they could get married on a large rock. They were a throw back to the hippies of the 1960’s; the groom wore dungarees and sported long curly hair and a beard and the bride wore a tie dyed dress. On the way home we stopped at Steves restaurant beside the airstrip to check it out for brekkie the next day and we were persuaded to try one of his amazing egg sandwiches. It was pretty awful so he was off our breakfast menu. We felt a bit sorry for Steve as we were probably his only customers for the day. Like most aspects of Shelter Cove his business was going down hill. We had a nana nap when we got home after our exertions and relaxed after dinner with a walk to see the sunset followed by a bit of blogging and our first games of Gin Rummy.  The scores were even one game a piece.