‘Ventura Highway in the sunshine, Where the days are longer, The nights are stronger, Than moonshine’ I was humming this a lot as we drove up part of the Ventura highway to Santa Barbara. Off course it does show my age but hey America was one of my fave bands way back when!
I had always wanted to drive the coast road..so we started in Santa Monica and ambled our way slowly, taking the time to stop often over two days. We ticked off a few more ‘Bucket List‘ places on this part of our trip. The Santa Monica Pier, Venice Beach, Malibu ..oh yeah.. and next time I wont listen to John and WILL book us into Malibu for a night!..I really wanted to wake up and feel like a movie star and walk on the beach at dawn.!!Cue the ‘just do it beg forgiveness’ after motto.
We stopped at the Pier and brought only two things.. a novel called Gidget (signed by Gidget herself) and an old surfing model car – The book for Lucie currently our youngest granddaughter and the car for Van our second oldest grandson…significant in that both their parents love to surf and their Granddaddy (Dave Jackman) on their dad’s side has a lifetime of history in NZ & Australian Surfing…
We discovered the gorgeous Malibu Country Mart…missing our grand kids we sat and enjoyed a coffee in the sun by the playground..what a lovely environment to shop & play.
We brought fresh strawberries in Oxnard..totally tempted by driving past fields after fields of strawberries and later that night in Ventura sat and watched the sun set across the pacific ocean.
Setting sun Ventura Beach
We lazed around Santa Barbara …What a cool place – we would happily retire there. Sun,beach,mountain,wine, great food – awesome shops. Actually what impressed us was how clean and fresh everything seemed. Wonderful architecture as well – a fantastic blend of Spanish, Mexican and we can see why this area is known as the American Riviera.
The trick with this coast road is to drive up and back as the best views are on the way back to LA simply because of driving on the wrong side of the road…from a Kiwi perspective.!
Santa Monica to Santa Barbara for us was a diverse mix of wacky, wealthy, and colorful with heartwarming coastal beauty. As Kiwis we are always drawn back to the sea, so much of NZ is only a drive away from a coast some where…so it always feels like home when we can dig our toes in the sand.
Turn Right 2 Go Left 