Campground Review: Oceano County Campground, Oceano, CA

Located near the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area, Oceano County Campground is a reasonably priced full hookup campground about two blocks from the beach. There is a day use park right across the street with a pretty lagoon for excellent bird watching.

There is an old wooden bridge on the road right outside the park. Every time a vehicle drives over it it makes a loud racket...kind of like two seconds of thunder. We got used to it after the first day, but were glad the roads were pretty quiet at night so we weren't woken up by this "thunder". Other than that, it was very quiet at night.

There are 22 full hookup sites, each with a picnic table and fire pit. Roads and sites are paved. Roads are narrow and there are railroad ties bordering the planted areas as well as short posts to number each site. Getting our 36 foot rig into site #12 was very difficult! That said, once parked, we felt we had good site separation and reasonable privacy for our sitting area due to the angle of the sites. The surface throughout the campground is a mix of dirt and small bark, we were glad we had a patio mat to avoid tracking the dirt in the RV.

Amenities include restrooms and fee showers ($1 for 3 minutes) and a playground. Since this is a county park and open to the public the showers are locked at 6pm each night to keep outsiders from coming in and using them. We had decent, but kind of slow, 4G Verizon signal.

The park backs up to a small airstrip and we enjoyed seeing small aircraft coming and going occasionally, mostly on the weekend.

There are many camping options in the area. At $35/night for full hookups this was a very good bargain. It seems to be a relatively unknown park and was never completely full during our week long stay.

Pros: Great price for full hookups near the beach, short walk to the beach, much quieter than other parks closer to Hwy 1, great bird watching. Cons: Tight access for larger RV's, the dirt/bark surface was a bit annoying, the wooden bridge noise was a bit annoying.

This was a decent place to stay for the reasons listed above but I don't know if we'd return since there are other places to explore along the central coast and we did everything we wanted to do while in this area.

We were in site 12. Those short posts and railroad ties can be a problem when backing in to your site.

Since our neighbors site was angled forward from ours we had a realtively private sitting area.

The bird watching lagoon across the street.

Wrapping Up Our Week in Oceano with a Sea Lion Rescue!

We've had a lovely time hanging out in Oceano, CA for the past week. The weather has been perfect: Sunny and low 70's on the coast and high 70's inland. The coast cools down quickly in the afternoon though, so you always have to have a jacket in the car just in case.

We hiked a combo of the Felsman Loop and Bishop Peak trails for a 5 mile, view-tastic, leg stretcher overlooking San Luis Obispo and the surrounding mountains. Bishop Peak is one of the chain of nine Morro's, or volcanic plugs, formed over 20 million years ago. The most well-known of them is in Morro Bay, a few miles North West.

We hiked on the Monday holiday and found Bishop Peak trail to be a very busy trail. Located on the edge of a college town, the many trails in the area get a lot of use at high traffic times. The trail up Bishop Peak is pretty steep, fully exposed to the sun (it was hot!) and has lots of boulders to step over and around. This area must be incredibly beautiful in the spring when all of the surrounding hills are green.

Bishop Peak looms over Hans at the start of the hike.
It tops out at 1,546 feet.

On the East flank of Bishop Peak we could see three other Morro's snaking North towards Morro Bay.

View of San Luis Obispo.

The top has clusters of giant boulders. You can see a couple of people top center.

Like Santa Cruz, where we stayed last week, Pismo Beach experiences the Monarch butterfly winter migration. We walked through the Monarch grove this morning when it was cloudy and cool so all the butterflies were hanging very quietly. They become more active when it's warmer.

This was one of many large clusters of Monarchs.

We spied some vultures having a meeting in the dunes:

Vultures in the dunes???

Walking back up the beach we spied a small sea lion seemingly stranded on the beach. A couple of women standing nearby had just called The Marine Mammal Center; luckily one of them had just recently learned about this group through her daughters Girl Scout troop...serendipitous! Moments later the rescuer arrived and he asked us bystanders to help!

Small sea lion stranded on the beach and kind of freaked out by people walking by...

The Marine Mammal Center to the rescue!

I held him captive while the rescuer got a crate...

Another bystander braced the crate...getting it in there was a challenge!

Off to the Center for a medical evaluation and eventual release back to the ocean!

After our exciting morning saving the sea lion (!!!) we spent the afternoon cleaning the roof of the RV...fun stuff! Tomorrow we're heading inland to Santa Paula for a few days and it's gonna be hot (compared to the beach anyhow)...before we make our way back to the coast.

Sea stars on the Pismo Beach pier.

Exploring California's Central Coast

We're currently spending a week in Oceano, CA, near Pismo Beach and the Central Coast Dunes. We are staying at Oceano County Park, only two blocks from the beach, so we're doing lots of beach walking. The beach here is a State Vehicular Recreation Area, so vehicles of all types are allowed on part of the beach. Fortunately the beach is huge and vehicles are not allowed in the dunes so we are able to enjoy the variety of terrain without much interference from vehicles. (Though the beach is a lot quieter on the weekdays!)

The shoreline here consists of wide flat beach flowing into plant covered dunes flowing into sand-only dunes. The variety of plants that grow on the dunes is amazing, not just grasses and bushes, sometimes you see huge pine or eucalyptus trees. There are small lakes and marshes in pockets as well.

We enjoy watching huge flocks of sandpipers running along the wave line.

One day we drove North to Avila Beach to hike the Shell Beach - Ontario Ridge Loop Trail. I started the hike off with a bang, literally, when I tripped over a piece of barbed wire and face planted down a short hillside. Luckily the damage was minimal and fairly superficial, but my nose may turn mighty colorful over the next week or so as it recovers from my sunglasses being jammed into the bridge of my nose!

Spectacular views from Ontario Ridge include Avila Cove.

The "cave" at Cave Landing.

The rugged coast line North of Cave Landing.

Enjoying a beer on the Avila Beach pier.
Ontario Ridge is the hill behind Hans' head.

Another day we drove about 15 miles to San Luis Obispo and hiked the Poly Canyon Desgin Village at Cal Poly and afterwards walked the charming streets of downtown SLO. California Polytechnic State University has a highly regarded architectural design program and the students are fortunate to have this wide open space to practice building unique structures.

Here are some shots from a walk on the beach last night...

The bird on the left is probably an osprey who just caught a fish...
we saw it happen!

Unique funnel-like cloud caught our attention in the distance.

Ocean Scenes, Redwood Hikes and Disc Golf with Friends in Santa Cruz

We spent five nights at New Brighton State Beach, in Capitola, CA (just South of Santa Cruz). The park sits on a bluff overlooking a long curved beach on Soquel Bay. The view from the bluff over this giant bay is to the South, towards Monterey...it seemed odd to be at the beach and have the sun go down to your right!

During our stay the water in the bay was quite calm and each day there were numerous stand-up paddlers and kayaks and small fishing boats in the water enjoying the incredible variety and quantity of animal life. We watched birds by the thousands spend time in the bay as well as seals and otters and dolphins and even whales in the distance.

View SW from the bluff at New Brighton State Beach.

View SE from the beach at New Brighton

The ship wreck sitting off a pier in Aptos, CA is the SS Palo Alto, a concrete tanker built in 1919 that is now a marine sanctuary. As we walked closer to it the stench from the hundreds of birds on it was overpowering!

Marine sanctuary SS Palo Alto.

Soquel Bay seemed to be a major hang out spot for thousands of sea birds. Often, we would see a patch of water roiling with fish and hundreds of birds would descend upon the spot.

One of many clusters of sea birds in Soquel Bay in the evening.

We walked the coast immediately North of Santa Cruz and were treated to gorgeous views, otters up close and butterflies.

Monterey Cypress stands watch over the coast line.

Far out in the water we could see otters anchored in kelp beds.

Long lines of pelicans dazzled us overhead and off shore.

We were excited to spy this otter within 100 feet of the shore.

Zoomed!

Lighthouse Field State Beach, at the North end of Santa Cruz, has clusters of Monterey Cypress and Blue Gum Eucalyptus which draw thousands of Monarch butterflies each winter. Though we were a bit early for the full migratory phenomenon, we did find a few clusters in the eucalyptus grove.

The Monarchs can be difficult to see at first, hanging in bunches on the eucalyptus.

Every minute or two they would flutter their wings at the same time,
making bright clusters of color in the trees.

We took a short but beautiful hike to the lime kilns in the Fall Creek unit of Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. Built in 1870, these lime kilns produced nearly a third of the states lime supply.

Limekilns in the middle of second growth redwood forest.

We also hiked a bit in the Southern section of Henry Cowell State Park, and encountered this impressive fallen redwood bridge.

Our friends Rick and Lori and Bill live in Boulder Creek, a small community deep in the redwoods North of Santa Cruz. We got together with them for disc golf and craft beer a couple of times during our stay, plus an excellent dinner and over night stay at their home one night. Both the Aptos High School and the De laVeaga disc golf courses had some seriously challenging hills!

"On Top of the World" at De laVeaga disc golf course, with Lori, Bill and Rick.
You've got ocean views at this 29 hole course.

Doggie Blaze joined us for disc golf at the Aptos High School course.

Imbibing excellent IPA's and Marzen at Santa Cruz Mountain Brewery.

Even Rosie has enjoyed our time at New Brighton:

Rosie likes the ocean view too!

Tomorrow we move on to Oceano, CA for more beach time among the dunes!