Highway One is back in business
THE older we get, the more difficult – and costly – it becomes to stay beautiful.
Yes, there are exceptions, but sooner or later, things begin to slip or sag and, inevitably, break down.
So perhaps it should have been expected that one day in May last year, 4½ million cubic metres of earth decided it was no longer happy in its ancient position and slid into the Pacific Ocean.
The biggest landslide in California’s history created 730m of new shoreline and a very big problem.
California’s famed Highway One stretches more than 1054km along the coastline of nearly the entire state, but its most celebrated stretch is the 212km between Monterey in the north and Morro Bay in the south.
Every bit as dazzling as the Amalfi or Dalmatian coasts, and as ruggedly beautiful as Victoria’s Great Ocean Road, Highway One is the artery that delivers the central coast region its tourism lifeblood. Without it, residents and businesses found themselves completely isolated and in serious economic trouble.
Enter Caltrans (the California Transportation Department), which spent the next 17 months and $54 million rebuilding the missing quarter mile of roadway, saving the dozens of businesses caught in the middle.
The road reopened in July and Highway One was officially back in business.
The occasion warranted a grand reopening party, a grand tour – the Highway One Dream Drive.
Thick morning fog was lifting as we arrived en masse at the famous WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in the Monterey hills. Waiting for us was a collection of classic cars, one from each of the 84 years Highway One has existed from 1934 to 2018.
There were rows of gleaming chrome from the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, through to some of today’s coolest and hottest cars, many from Monterey Touring Vehicles, which seems to have a near endless cupboard of dream cars. It felt like Christmas morning.
I was handed the keys to a silver 1971 Cadillac El Dorado Convertible – a car so cool it demands sartorial reciprocity. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you swollen Bing Crosby …
We began with a ceremonial lap around the racetrack with Aussie racing legend Craig Lowndes at the wheel of a 1970 Corvette Stingray right in front of me. Racing was not the primary concern of the 1971 Cadillac design team (imagine driving your living room), so it was a welcome change when we left the corkscrew turns behind and began our descent down Monterey hills to turn collectively south on to Highway One.
I quickly settled in behind the wheel of the Caddy to an undulating mix of ’70s funk and contemporary road tunes that kept us grooving all the way to Big Sur, where we stopped for lunch at the exquisite Ventana Resort.
Ventana’s 59 gorgeous guest rooms are nestled among 65 thickly forested hectares in the hills overlooking the Pacific.
At $1400–$3100 a night, it’s pricey, but spend even one night here and watch the sun dip into the ocean as you wrap a blanket around your shoulders against the creeping fog, and sip a glass of whiskey while you snuggle up to that special someone by the fire … and then tell me it wasn’t worth every cent.
We climbed back aboard the Caddy, the sun now in full bloom, and soon emerged from the thickly wooded stretch through Big Sur into the aptly named Ragged Point, now just a few kilometres from the site of the landslide itself.
Like any 84-year-old who recently had work done, it’s remarkable how different the repaired road looks.
Still one tries not to gawk and chooses to imagine how wonderful it will all look once the scars fade and things settle in a bit. These things, after all, take time.
Photos: Visit California