Saturday, September 17, 2005
Sat on the bed in Motel Los Padres after a most bizarre evening spent at the Madonna Hotel. More on this later.We spent the day at Moro bay. A pretty little harbour town surrounded by a 2 mile sand spit, it is marred only by the usual assortment of overweight tourists and nuclear power station. We bought fish and chips (nowhere near the quality of Toffs in Muswell Hill) and went for a long ol walk along the spit. Accessed by scaling 60 foot sand dunes (more fun on the way down) the bay is a haven for birds, seals, sea otters, whales and sea lions - the latter was dead and smelt pretty bad... the picture was going to feature for this post, but C thought it was a bit grim so you get a curlew silhoeuette instead!
Got back to to the motel to get ready for our first posh meal out. The Madonna Hotel is set in 2000 acres just off the 101 highway. Owned by a one Alex Madonna - champion cattle rancher and horse breeder - it is the most ostentatious, brash, gaudy, bizarre place I've ever been to. Complete with badly sculpted gilt cherubs holding up the shocking pink pillars that hold up the glittered starlit ceiling, it beats Las Vegas hands down. Unfortunately I forgot the camera, so have no evidence of this. It does redeem itself with the food however, producing without doubt the best steak we have both ever eaten. It was a hilarious meal, topped by my restroom experience. Fashioned out of polystrene rock, the urinal is a cave... as you take a piss, your body breaks an infra red beam that triggers the flush. A waterfall that cascades over the fake rock face and onto the mosaic floor. I don't think the architect had banked on the volume of splashback so figure the yellow Caution Wet Floor sign wasn't part of the overall design.
Back to the wilderness tomorrow. Hearst's Castle and the Big Sur coastline.
posted by Finn at 5:21 AM
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