16 Friday

In the morning we drove back to Carmel Mission to have a good look through and of course we had to pay. We were invited to join in the holy communion that was due to commence while we were there but decided very quickly to give this a miss. It was quite interesting looking around the old Mission Station which still functioned as a school and church. The Mission is extremely old, built in 1771 and renovated in 1931 so is now in quite good condition. We walked into the church to admire the intracat wood panellings and then to the old museum where there were many old photos and paintings depicting the Mission's history.

A painting of the original Carmel Mission Station

Side entrance to the church off the enclosed courtyard

A jumble of succulants and a weary traveller

Photographed our first Humming Bird. At around mid morning we made our way to the Pinnacles National Monument (Park) via Salinas and a subway sandwich fast food place which was about a 1 and half hour drive east. Brendan saw a Tarantula crossing the road and couldn’t believe that a spider could be so big. He was the only one to see this and was quite disappointed because we didn’t want to turn round and go back to investigate. After we parked the car we chose a track from the information board and we climbed up for about an hour and a half to nearly reach the highest point. It was extremely hot, but fabulous views of the surrounding rocky walls and peaks. The photos don’t do justice to this place. As much as Brendan wanted to see bears, mountain lions and snakes the best we could manage was a squirrel. On our way back to Mountain View we stopped off at Gilroy which has hundreds of outlet shops. We didn’t know where to start looking first. We did quite a bit of shopping here always looking for the elusive bargain. Also decided to eat here. Finally arrived back at Mountain View early evening.