Day 27: Niscene Marks, The Bagelry, and Cultural Exchanges Amongst the Vines

We went ‘over the hill’ to go for a walk in the redwoods. It took a while to find Niscene Marks State Park, despite being near an area Disa used to hang out in. We went for a lovely walk, however the frustration of trying to geocache in an area with no GPSr coverage finally wore Disa down and we left sooner than planned. We had a great lunch at the Bagelry in Capitola, then did a few geocaches. Capitola is an incredibly beautiful coastal town, just big enough to have a small interesting city centre, still small enough to be unspoilt. One of the geocaches took us along a cliff walk with beautiful ocean views and a mixture of old beach shacks and new houses that are so in demand that they haven’t been advertised for sale for over 30 years. According to an estate agent we unashamedly eavesdropped on every time an owner wants to move or dies there is a bun fight amongst the relatives and friends as to who can buy the house so outsiders never get a chance. I can well imagine. On the way home we dropped into Gizdich Farms as we’d been told how good the pies were. They had already closed, however the nice, nice man opened up for us. When we mentioned to him that we might be tempted to eat it before we got over Mt Madonna, he gave us a free piece to keep us honest!We dropped by Kirigan to leave the pie for David, and Corri, who we thought would be arriving later in the evening, was already there! She was tasting the wines Kirigan has to offer, so we joined her. When Maria closed the tasting room she then took us on a tour of the cellars, bringing the thief along so we could taste from various barrels. Later David arrived with his parents, Mel and Judy, to join in the fun. A night of drunken debauchery refined cultural pursuits ensued. Wine tasting, a tour through the cellars, tasting random barrels, then the girls went out to the cricket pitch and got a bit rowdy including a secret women‘s business fertility rite for next year‘s vintage!