In early April 2001, a bus tour took us out into Northern San Luis Obispo county to see what wildflowers were there. It turned out to be a good year and the results along with a short tour of the Camatta Ranch are shown here [Note: The Camatta Ranch is a PRIVATE ranch and not open for general tours without prior contact; please do NOT just drop in on them]. First, a map...
After picking up passengers, the bus left U.S. 101 in Atascadero, heading East on Highway 41. At Creston we took a detour South to Highway 58 via Donovan Road. We continued East on 58 to Shell Creek Road. Shell Creek Road runs through a wildlife preserve and usually has an abundance of flowers. That was certainly true this year.
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Most of the flowers in this area were a small yellow variety as seen here in the closeups. But, even so, taken together they created a vast carpet of color. |
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A bit further East on Highway 58 brings us to...
Camatta is a star of a ranch. For one thing, it's big! At 32,000 acres it's been a cattle ranch since the days of the Spanish land grants (it was 40,000 acres but is now 32,000). While there we toured the holding areas for numerous exotic animals and then took a tour out to the creek where we saw 6 million year old aquatic fossils (the entire area used to be a seabed way back then). [Note: The Camatta Ranch is a PRIVATE ranch and not open for general tours without prior contact; please do NOT just drop in on them]
The exotic animals are at the ranch by permit as the ranch cares for them when others may no longer be able to. Usually, when you arrive the first thing that greets you are one or more of the peacocks...
In a pen near the parking area are some giant tortoises and in the building next door the ranch is raising some more from eggs...
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The "hayride" (it's really a tram pulled by a car) takes you by the various exotic animals...
And, then proceeds down to the creek where the fossils are located. Here you can see the wall along the road where the fossils are visible and a close shot of a 6 million year old seashell...
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| Finally, after the fossils you return to the main area. Here
you are often "greeted" by one or more of the turkeys
that have the run of the area. They are quite persistent!
Contact the ranch at (805) 238-7324. |
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On leaving the ranch, we turned North on bitterwater road, traveling through the Carrisa Plains. Here we saw different flowers along with several herds of antelope (sorry, no pictures of them).
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Finally, we jogged North to visit Parkfield. But, that's another page.
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Tom Simondi, All Rights Reserved
