Wildlife reserve at Morro Bay

HIDDEN GEM:IF YOU'VE ever driven south along the coast from San Francisco towards Los Angeles, chances are you'll have been waiting to see Big Sur, you'll have made a point of visiting Monterey – but you'll probably have passed right by Morro Bay.

Unless you’re a nature-lover who knows the secrets of America’s west coast, it’s the sort of place you happen upon by accident when you’ve driven too far and are looking for a hotel – which is exactly what happened to us.

It’s when we woke up the next morning, looked out over the water and saw the enormous 176-metre high rock that dominates the harbour, that we looked at each other, looked at the map and asked: where exactly are we?

What we were seeing was Morro Rock (below) – named El Moro by the Portuguese explorer, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542 because it resembled the head of a Moor.

And what we soon found out was that Morro Bay is one of the most extraordinary nature and wildlife reserves anywhere on the west coast.

The bay itself comprises 2,300 acres of open water, mudflats, eel-grass beds and tidal wetlands – sheer paradise for virtually every species of fish and fowl.

Two dozen threatened and endangered species live in the bay’s 48,000-acre watershed, including the peregrine falcon, the brown pelican, the sea otter, the steelhead trout, the snowy plover, the black rail – and the wonderfully-named Morro Bay kangaroo rat.

As a result, part of the bay is a wildlife refuge, part is a marine reserve and part is a national bird sanctuary – and the town attracts environmentalists and wildlife enthusiasts from all over the world.

There’s no public access to Morro Rock itself because it’s the most closely-guarded part of the reserve – where the peregrine falcon nests.

Every so often, someone tries to climb the rock and is arrested or falls in to the sea around the base, which is littered with fallen boulders. Sometimes they’re killed and sometimes they’re hauled out by Morro Bay coast guard – which could be worse.