20th May 2012

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More leisurely start today, breakfast at 8am in Hans cafe, Bob had bacon and egg on a pancake!! Which was a first and not exactly a full English breakfast, but with two pancakes substantial, the others had cereal, whimps.

Checked out of the Hotel Vertigo and did scenic drive down Pacific Coast road. That is until we were stopped by Road Closed signs. We did not know this but there was a big Annual Event taking place in one of the National Parks bordering the coast road. However having circumnavigated this we ended up back on the coast road at Seal Point.

It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky and warm sunshine but as soon as you got out of the car the wind off the Pacific Ocean was really cold and you needed a windproof to stop the chill.

We carried on down the coast road to Half Moon Bay where we stopped for a coffee, there were a lot of surfers in this area, perhaps because the surf was good with the strong onshore wind.

A bit further along the coast but still in Half Moon Bay we walked along the cliff top path and then made the mistake of trying to walk back along the beach in very soft sand it was very heavy going on the beach and made the return leg seem five times the distance. Also the cliffs were high and there was no escape from the beach until we got back to the car.

After this we travelled inland to San Mateo for lunch.

After lunch we tried to find our hotel with the aid of two sat nav's one built into the car one portable, neither of the Sat Navs could get us to the hotel as they both tried to send us up roads the wrong way, much to Vernon's (the driver) displeasure and frustration. After an hour of circling the same roads over and over we decided to drive out of San Mateo and make the approach from a different direction. Which eventually got us there. It seems that there has been some recent road/junction changes on the outskirts of San Mateo which neither Sat Nav's had been updated with.

We had prebooked a night in the Best Western Hotel in San Mateo as a starting point for our trip to Yosemite tomorrow.

After eventually checking in to the Hotel we went to a Japanese restaurant for our evening meal as Vernon had decided that for the rest of the Holiday we would probably have to survive on Burger and chips!!

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