It was foggy and cold in LA when I woke up. Not wanting to spend $18 on the hotel breakfast I went for a walk to see if I could find somewhere interesting. The city is so much bigger than it looks on the map and I couldn't find anything close by so in the end I just got a muffin from a supermarket.

I'd planned to hand around until the afternoon and go siteseeing but the weather and the fact that it was going to take me 30 minutes of driving just to get anywhere worth being changed my mind and I left before 11am for San Diego.

The drive was quick and easy. The landscape has become increasingly arid with cacti and other desert plants scattered around. The temperature still hasn't been that warm although I'm told that this time of the year is known as June Gloom and it's often overcast.

I'm staying with a friend here so I headed straight for her house. We decide to go to a nearby beach (Black's Beach I think it was called) for the afternoon. The track to get there was worth the trip by itself as it ran down through a little gorge cut by water.

The ocean on the West Coast is renowned for being extremely cold. In spite of that we manage to have a quick swim. One end of the beach is a nude beach (not the end that we were on) and although people are meant to stick to that end we were visited by a pantless old man who had wandered over. Not the nicest thing to have to look at...

We took a less strenuous route back from the beach which gave us good views of the many cliff top mansions. It reminded me quite a bit of Paritai Drive back in Auckland. The lush green lawns and flower beds and rose bushes really stood out after so much brown grass and cacti.

Tomorrow's plan is the visit the world famous San Diego Zoo