Still in Point Reyes (16th December)

It wasn’t the best of starts to the morning, woken by a lady and a child traipsing with their torches in their hands to the toilet at the other end of the room, and kept awake by the two ladies in our room who were evidently stuck in some other time zone having gone to bed at 8.30 p.m and then thinking six o’clock was a civilised time to start asking each other in loud voices how they had slept. I think I place too much value on sleep. We were going for a hike along the Drakes Estero Trail, but first got side-tracked by the promise of mountain views at Mount Vision, accessed by Mount Vision Road. The road wound into the hills for what seemed like forever and with no vision onto a view, although past many flickers and beautiful lichen draped trees. Eventually we found a view after a short walk up the hill and through an area that looked very much like Stonebarrow with a view that looked very much like the Dorset coast.

Having wound our way back down the hill of vision we did finally make it to the head of the Estero trail, but found it difficult to get ourselves going. Having eaten copious flapjacks, visited the outhouse and just getting started on extolling the virtues of the copious toilet paper situation among the outhouses of Point Reyes National Seashore Jenny spotted us a bobcat just visible on the side of the hill. We then observed as the bobcat, which looked very much like a cheetah, prowled through the grassland and waited patiently before pouncing at some prey. Not being successful it moved on to another patch and then came straight down towards me. I did get a bit scared (having heard too many cougar and bear stories over the past months..), but moving my camera and telephoto lens from my face, realised it really didn’t look like much of a threat.

Drakes Estero trail wasn’t greatly exciting, there were lots of birds, but we couldn’t see them well and even if we could have we wouldn’t have known what they were. The trail allows ‘the observant hiker opportunity to see owls perched in the pine trees’ according to information at the hostel. We were observing with all our might, but to no avail. But it didn’t really matter, because we saw the bobcat! Mammal watching is a far easier hobby, especially here.