Point Reyes was a foggy place with limited visibility at 7am, but the birds and rabbits were all waiting for me when I got to the Abbott’s Lagoon trail, and the short out-and-back to the ocean was a good appetizer for the rest of the day. Quail were all over, sparrows were hopping at my feet, and the least-afraid/least-annoyed great blue heron I’ve ever met posed for pictures on a bridge for at least five minutes.
The main hike for the day was the nine-mile round trip to Tomales Point at the park’s northernmost end. I started off in the fog with tule elk bugling all around me, and enjoyed a druid-esque walk through the landscape with just deer and the elk as companions. The scenery on this trail is supposed to be extraordinary, but with visibility limited I was excited to have an elk or deer pop up fifty feet from me every few minutes. On the way back the fog lifted somewhat, and while the scenery was great, the animals remained the stars of the show, including a massive bull elk who was grazing ten feet off the trail on a portion that bordered a cliff, and who was none-too-pleased when I timidly walked by, all the while calmly telling him not to mind me and to continue eating.
Dinner tonight was at the Hog Island Oyster Cafe, and while they didn’t quite top the oysters in Tasmania, barbecued oysters and homemade sourdough bread while sitting at a picnic table next to the ocean wasn’t a bad way to wrap up the day.
