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Friday 12th August 2005 - Departure from Sequoia NP, arrival at Santa Monica Mountains NRA
We took advantage of the showers at the camp ground one more time, before heading off at about 9:30. We'd estimated our journey to be one of about 200 miles and that it would take about 4 hours to get to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area (NRA). Once again we got this somewhat wrong! The drive was the least enjoyable of all, on very busy LA-bound freeways. It turned out to be 275 miles and it took us 6 hours in the end!
We stopped off at the visitor centre at Thousand Oaks city and they told us that camp grounds in the NRA, especially those at the beach, tended to be booked up 6 months in advance. They adviced that we go to one 8 miles in from the coast at Malibu Creek State Park (which is inside the NRA), where they were thought to hold back a few sites for "out of town guests".
On arrival, we found they had their "camp site full" sign up. We spoke to the ranger at the gate anyway and sure enough, they did have a small supply of sites reserved for "out of town" guests. There was no questioning whether we were from out of town or not of course!
We pitched camp and then drove the 8 miles down to the coast, and got ourselves down onto the beach adjacent to Malibu. The beach was fairly quiet and the temperature only in the 80s so not too hot. Jack and Bekky went in the sea with the boogie board, Jack managing to accomplish a really impressive wipe out!
We picked up a few final groceries and had dinner back at the camp site followed by the usual card games, eating and drinking!
Tomorrow we leave for England....
Click on the photos for full size versions
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Just arrived at the Malibu Creek State Park in the Santa
Monica Mountains
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Strategically camped under some shade
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On the beach just up the coast from Malibu
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A birdy
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Surfer dudes
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Eeek! A wave!
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Watch this Bekky!
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Noooo! Jack has hideous wipe out, smashing his face
onto the ocean floor. Bekky thinking it was funny (at this stage). Jack
did in fact survive to surf again!
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More birdies
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Run away!
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