While driving around Santa Cruz, Apple Park and Half Moon Bay, we also planned to visit Ano Neuvo State Park during the sunset. Ano Nuevo State Marine Conservation Area (SMCA) is one of two adjoining marine protected areas off the coast of San Mateo and Santa Cruz Counties. This blog-post shares more about Anu Neuvo State Park, it's landscapes, habitat, coastal views & lot more.
Jacek, my office friend who drove us to these places, had researched about the whole itinerary of the day and he was very clear about timings, place and the route. All of us were excited about visiting the place as we checked out rating of the place and lot of folks had good things to share about it.
It was about to sunset when we reached the park, but it was open. There is a parking fees but on Saturday when we visited, the parking office was closed but there was enough place to park the car. We parked the car, stretched a bit and started walking towards the beachside. There is well paved track which you can follow and go close to the coast of Pacific Ocean.
Ano Nuevo State Park is a state park of California, USA, encompassing Ano Nuevo Island and Ano Nuevo Point, which are known for their pinniped rookeries. Ano Neuvo State Park is located in San Mateo County and is about 55 miles (89 km) south of San Francisco and the Golden Gate.
As we starting walking we realised that Ano Neuvo is also popular amongst surfers. There was a group of 7-10 surfers there and with a videographer with them. It seems some sort of shoot was happening. It's not too difficult to find surfers around this coastline and in fact, majority of traffic on the highway has good number of cars with surfboards on them.
The Ano Neuvo reserve contains a diversity of plants, including old growth forest, freshwater marsh, red alder riparian forest and pine forest. Its four perennial streams support steelhead and coho salmon, and its wetlands are habitat to the rare San Francisco garter snake and California red-legged frog.
Cultural resources of Ano Neuvo include the remnants of a pre-historic Native American village site and a number of structures from the 19th century Cascade Ranch. In conjunction with adjacent and nearby public lands, the unit permits the protection of important regional ecological corridors.
Northern elephant seals, California sea lions, sea otters, and other marine mammals come ashore to rest, mate and give birth in the sand dunes or on the beaches and offshore islands. Hundreds of thousands of people come to witness it each year but unfortunately we didn't have enough time to reach that point. It was getting dark so we cam back from halfway. That certainly made us think about planning another trip to Ano Neuvo State Park again.
Ano Nuevo State Park is the site of one of the largest mainland breeding colonies for the northern elephant seal. The seals attracted so much interest that early reservations are needed during the winter breeding season. The males battle for mates on the beaches and the females give birth to their pups on the dunes.
Point Ano Nuevo is used by thousands of breeding seabirds and marine mammals and supports a world famous elephant seal haul out and breeding ground. The waters surrounding the point attract a concentration of great white sharks and include documented hotspots for depleted canary rockfish. Threatened marbled murrelets rest on shore and forage in the lee of the point.
Ano Nuevo SMCA provides habitat for a variety of marine life, and includes rocky intertidal, sandy beach, estuary, offshore rocks and islands, shale reef, bull kelp and giant kelp forest.
If you liked this post and found it helpful, I would request you to follow these things when traveling -
1. Manage your waste well and don’t litter Use dustbins.
2. Tell us if you went to a place and found it hard to locate a dustbin.
3. Avoid bottle waters in hills. Usually you get clean water in hills and water bottles create lot of mess in our ecosystem.
4. Say big no to plastic and avoid those unhealthy snacks packed in plastic bags. Rather buy fruits.
5. Don't play loud blaring music in forests of jungle camps. You are a guest in that ecosystem and disturbing the locals (humans and animals) is not polite
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