For those of you who know and love "The Castle" this one should be a good yarn. For those of you yet to delight in the film, go and see it and get a better perspective on the Australian psyche.

I went to Bonny Doon. Ah, the serenity. Pity that there wasn't a lake in sight, nor a fibro shack or power boat. But I did manage to find something to put in the trophy room! I must admit it was hard to resist chanting "We're going to Bonny Doon" in the car, but my companion, not having seen the film, thought I had gone quite potty.

Bonny Doon is a hilly area between Cupertino and Santa Cruz. I went to visit an alpaca farmer who turned out to also be a widely travelled author. Eric Hoffman is his name, and the tropy I came back with was his book "Adventuring in Australia" which he wrote for the Sierra Club. A lovely bloke, and very modest. He had seen more of Australia than I had, and we chatted for a while about the similarity between my home in the Dandenong Ranges and his Bonny Doon. He showed me his paintings from the Healsville Sanctuary, and his Australian garden, with grevillia and gums, melaleuca and native grasses and other plants from the Grampians area in Victoria. I met his dog, a Kelpie, and his corella. It was like coming home.

While I was taking in all of the familiar sights and scents I then saw something that reminded me starkly of where I was. A small squirrel was eating seeds from a feeder, beside another feeder that was the focus of attention of a woodpecker. These are definitely not sights you would see in Australia!

For those still wondering about the "other" Bonny Doon, it is a recreational area at the end of a dam, Lake Eildon, in Victoria. It is the weekend haunt of many a water skier, although less so of late given the state of the damn after years of drought. Power boats, beer, barbeque smoke and general merriment is the order of the day. This is quite a bit different to the peaceful, heavily wooded area of its American namesake.

From Bonny Doon we went into Santa Cruz and down the coast road. A rather spectacular view of the Pacific ocean. I thought that if I got a boat and sailed pretty much south west from there I would eventually hit Australia. But then I didn't have a boat, nor did I really feel suicidal.

Santa Cruz is pretty much like many seaside towns, with an amusement park, the usual tourist tat, a pier that you can fish from, etc. Mind you, most seaside towns in Australia don't have piers that have shops and parking bays all down their length. The only thing that marred the experience was the heavy rain. "It never rains in California, but boy, don't they warn ya, it pours. Man it pours." Well it wasn't really pouring, but it was heavy enough to get soaking wet after a half an hour or so of walking down the pier. Certainly I think that Mamma Cass would not have been dreaming of this California.

I did manage to see some sea lions, and watched the surfers out near the lighthouse. Then we went further down the coast to Pelican Point lighthouse, which is currently being refurbished, so we didn't get to look inside the museum it contains. Our final port of call was Pescadero Beach, and this was just spectactular. We climbed out onto a spit of rock into the ocean and just took in the sights, sounds and smells. If I get a chance I'll upload some images.