Week 12 : Hearst Castle To Gorda

Dogs aren’t allowed on the tour of Hearst Castle. This is a little odd seeing that old WR (having paid my $24 dollar entrance fee I feel that a degree of familiarity is warranted) was fond of animals. During the 1930s, herds of giraffes, lions, elephants and zebras would wander around the grounds, and, as we saw the previous night, some of the zebras still remain. In many ways, William Randolph Hearst was the spiritual godfather to Michael Jackson. Nevertheless, in order to take the tour, I had to leave Amy behind which, given her temperament, is always a bit of a risk. I left her down by the Pacific Coast and she promised to just sit and watch the elephant seals and wait for my return.

Hearst Castle is well document in both the traditional and the digital media. If you want to get a flavour of the conducted tour, there is a honest little video taken by skcarterr available on YouTube. If you want to see some superb images of the Castle have a look at the photo gallery on the Hearst Castle website. If you want to know about WR then a good starting point is his entry in Wikipedia. However, you can get quite a good idea of the chap by looking at the Editorial Guidelines he circulated to all his 28 newspapers in 1933. Number 1 is “Make a paper for the nicest kind of people for the great middle class. Don’t print a lot of dull stuff that people are supposed to like and don’t”. Number 2 is even better : “Omit things that will offend nice people. Avoid coarseness and a low tone”.

For someone who was such a consummate showman and a first-class manipulator of twentieth century media, it is somehow appropriate that his lasting legacy is a fake castle and a razor-sharp movie. Hearst Castle looks stunning perched on the hills above the Pacific coast. But it is made of reinforced concrete to withstand the earthquakes and its treasures where shipped over from a bevy of European Stately Homes. The movie was, of course, Citizen Kane – the story of a megalomaniac newspaper publisher which is still rated by many people as the greatest film ever made. Whether it was the greatest movie ever made and whether it was a true portrayal of Hearst were questions rumbling around my mind as the tour bus brought me back down “the enchanted hill” to the visitors centre.

I found Amy (did she have a guilty look on her fine wheaten-blond face?) and we followed Highway 1 north, leaving Hearst Castle, San Simeon and the south central coast of California behind us. For the next two or three weeks we were leaving much of what, in California, constitutes civilisation behind. As far as I could see from the map, for the next eighty miles there would be no fast-food restaurants and no shopping malls. There would, however, be plenty of elephant seals.


I caught my first sight of these magnificent animals a few miles north of San Simeon at the Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Viewing Point. Truth be told, as soon as they saw Amy most of them made a dash for the open sea which made me somewhat suspicious of her activities whilst I was doing the Castle Tour. However, you can enjoy the full elephant seal experience – including the sound of them honking and barking at each other – on the Friends of the Elephant Seal website. For those captivated by these animals a visit to the National Geographic’s live Seal Cam is essential.

Just north of the seal colony is the Piedras Blancas Lighthouse, one of only three lighthouses built on the Californian coast. It was built to guide ships safely into San Simeon Bay which in the middle of the nineteenth century was a centre for the whaling industry. According to the wonderful Lighthouse Friends website, the whaling station was built “to surprise the huge creatures as they hugged the nearby shoreline during their annual migration”. It all sounds a bit beastly to me, but Amy casts a knowing look out to the open sea. I have a feeling that I know what she will be dreaming about tonight.

Over the next few days the road north takes us over the County Line. We leave behind San Luis Obispo County and enter Monterey County. Before I embarked on my virtual journey, I had little idea of the existence of counties in the United States. Like all half-decent pub quiz players, I could name most of the States and a sprinkling of State capitals. But the concept of a County (and American County that is) was foreign to me. But as I walked on I became more familiar with counties and county lines : they would act as useful yardsticks, handy reference points and emotional bookmarks. So Amy and I said farewell to SLO (as those who have walked its streets call it) and hello to Monterey, home to half a million people and one of the original counties of the State of California.

For the rest of the week we walked north along State Route 1 (Highway 1 to those who have walked its tarmac) which must be one of the most beautiful coastal roads in the world. It has been designated an “All-American Road” (one of only 27 in the USA). The designation means they have features that do not exist elsewhere in the United States and are scenic enough to be tourist destinations unto themselves.

By the end of week 12 we had reached Gorda (the official maps call it Gorda, the web-based spin-doctors call it Gorda Springs-by-the Sea). Whatever you call it, it is a couple of houses a shop and a café. According to the Beach California website, Gorda’s Whale Watcher Cafe is “a world renowned establishment offering a 60 year tradition of hospitality and gourmet dining in a romantic, nautical-like setting”. World-famous or not, Amy and I settled down at the end of the week, looking out to sea, watching out for whales swimming by.

Week 11 : Cayucos To Hearst Castle, San Simeon

Leaving the pier at Cayucos behind, Amy and I followed the Cabrillo Highway heading North-West. At times the sea was our companion, at times it melted away behind low hills and rocky outcrops. For a couple of days we enjoyed the comparative solitude of this part of Central California. There was always plenty of traffic on the highway, but if you left that behind and followed one of the many paths which ran parallel to the main road you were alone with your dog and your thoughts and a hundred screeching sea birds. One felt at harmony with nature and therefore it was quite appropriate that after two days we entered the “town” of Harmony.

Harmony, California has a population of just 18 and consists of no more than one short street and a few tin-roofed houses. But with at least four websites, it must have one of the highest ratios of websites to population of anywhere in the world. Founded in the mid-nineteenth century as a creamery, during its early years Harmony was anything but harmonious. Rivalries and feuding amongst dairy farmers led to at least one shooting after which a truce was called and a co-operative dairy was established in the town. During its heyday it was a thriving community with a store, livery stable, post office and schoolhouse. After the dairy was moved to San Luis Obispo in the 1950s the town went into decline and was largely abandoned for many years. Restoration began in the 1970s and today Harmony is a small artist and artisan community. According to one of its websites, the activities available in Harmony are “viewing art, drinking wine and shopping”. Recently, the glass artist, Carl Radke, closed his Pheonix Studio in the town so that just leaves drinking wine and shopping. As Amy and I are both reticent shoppers at the best of times, we headed for Harmony Cellars Winery. We settled down under the Gazebo, soaking up the warm Californian sun with a glass of their 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon (OK in Amy’s case it was a small saucer). She is developing a good nose for wine and confidently told me that there were intense cherry aromas with hints of mild spices, and a soft toastiness of a finish which came from French oak aging. You have to give her credit, she is quite some dog.

Leaving Harmony behind we continued on towards the town of Cambria which, although still being a relatively small place, is still some 35 times bigger than Harmony. The town is divided into three quarters (if you will excuse the contradiction) : the East Village which is composed of “beautiful old Victorian houses” (they fight a war of independence only to name their styles after our bloody monarchs); the West Village which is composed of “charming old Victorian houses”; and Moonstone Beach and Drive which one assumes is neither beautiful nor charming. Actually, that is unfair as it seems a lovely place. Rather than the more common white sandy beaches of southern California, Moonstone Beach is made up of small pebbles, polished smooth by the sea. It takes its name from the moonstone, a form of orthoclase feldspar, which is usually polished as a cabochon (whatever that is), and is often carved with a moon face. If you are lucky these can be found on the beach, washed up and polished by the Pacific waves.

According to the splendidly-named Wyrdology website, the Romans believed that moonstones were formed from drops of moonlight. As such they are attributed with those properties traditionally associated with the moon: romance, femininity, intuition, dreams, the emotions, etc. Many cultures believe the moonstone to be a calming, healing stone and it has sometimes been said to allow a glimpse of the future. Amy was keen to get in touch with her feminine side and I was keen to know what the weather would be like next week (we had a long walk planned) so we spent some time searching the beach for moonstones. We didn’t find any so we went and had a burger and fries instead.

One of the best features of this bit of the coast is the Moonstone Beach Boardwalk. Boardwalks are very much an American thing and I was keen to experience one. I can do no better than to quote from Monica Tarzier of the Santa Lucia Chapter of the Sierra Club who describes her walk along the Boardwalk.

“The morning is quiet, cool, damp. We cross Moonstone Beach Drive to access the boardwalk, which skirts the beach for a civilized walk of approximately three quarters of a mile one way. Dogs are allowed on leash. Our walk is lined with baccharis, mustard in flower, sage, oxalis, and cultivars such as dusty miller and rock rose. Monterey cypress creates a lush canopy over the boardwalk in several places”.

Thank you Monica, I couldn’t have described it better myself!

By the end of the week we arrive in San Simeon. Whilst much of this walk is something of an aimless wander, I have to admit I had been purposely heading for San Simeon for a good few weeks. For one thing, it marks the exact midway point between Los Angeles and San Francisco. For another it marks the location of what must be one of the strangest places in the United States. In the early evening, Amy and I rest by the main coastal road watching the zebras grazing in the field (yes, zebras) and looking up towards the wonders of Hearst Castle. But our exploration of this incredible building must wait until Week 12.