Day 1 -- Point Reyes National Seashore

02/15/2020 Saturday

Itinerary:

• Point Reyes Station
• Drake's Beach
• Point Reyes Lighthouse
• Chimney Rock
• Dinner at Sushi Tri

It's the long weekend and we made plans to get away for a short trip in Northern California. I picked Point Reyes as I have heard good things about this place but even though I lived about 2 hours away, I have never been there. A little history on Point Reyes, it is the windiest place on the Pacific Coast and the second foggiest place on the North American continent. Usually it is foggiest during summer time and the best time to visit is from December to April.

First we drove to Point Reyes Station which is their downtown and has several restaurants so that we could meet our friends. Do note that cellphone reception is pretty bad in some areas of the national park, so make sure you plan your meeting point ahead of time.

After meeting up with our friends, we were going to drive to Drake's beach as the road to the lighthouse is closed to private cars due to the busy season since winter to spring is the best time to see grey whales migrating and elephant seals. It was another 30-40 minutes drive to Drake's beach from Point Reyes and there was only 1 sign on the way there that showed where the beach/shuttle was. Again, the reception there was bad, so make sure that you watch for the sign.

We parked in Drake's beach and bought tickets for the bus shuttle to take us to the lighthouse and Chimney Rock. The shuttle ticket costs $7/adult and is free for kids under 15. I think they should charge more for this and also maybe charge admission fees to enter the park as they could use the money to repair some of the roads. There was a small area where the road was flooded and only one lane available.

We bought the shuttle bus tickets at the Visitor Center in Drake's beach and also saw a few elephant seals on the beach.

From Drake's beach, it was another 20 minutes or so to reach our first stop, Point Reyes Lighthouse which was built in 1870 and retired from service in 1975. It was ~0.45 miles from the bus stop to the lighthouse visitor center. The observation deck is located about 313 steps down or equivalent of ~30 stories and is a great place to watch grey whales.

We did well walking down the many steps and there was 3 small rest areas along the way for people to take a break and catch their breath. We did well and did not use any of the rest area going down but rested a little on our way up.

It was a very nice little lighthouse and the view was very nice but windy.

After the lighthouse, we went to the bus stop to go to our next stop, which is Chimney Rock. We didn't have to wait too long for the bus and it took about 10 minutes to reach Chimney Rock. First we walked to the Elephant Seal Overlook to see the elephant seals resting on the beach below but it was pretty far to look at.

The docent there told us that we should go to the USCG Boathouse on the other side as there is a mother elephant seals with a few of her baby seals. We walked about 20-30 minutes to reach there and could see the mother seal and her babies pretty close up on the sand while we could see the father seal out in the water and he is huge.

After that, we walked back to take the bus to Drake's beach and drove back to Point Reyes Station. It was around 4pm and we decided to get some early dinner as the kids were hungry. Unfortunately, most restaurants were closed during this time and had to wait till 5pm before they opened, so we walked around for a little bit before deciding to go to our hotel and eat around there.

Although we could have drove home the same night, but we decided to stay 1 night at Novato which is ~45 minutes away from Point Reyes Station to hang out with our friends and just relax. We found a Japanese restaurant nearby the hotel and ate there for dinner.