We were hoping to make a visit to Chimney Rock and the Point Reyes lighthouse this morning, but the road was closed and we could only get as far as Point Reyes Beach South without taking a shuttle the rest of the way there. So we looked for an alternate hiking spot, and found the Bull Point Trail, which ended up being a pleasant surprise. There’s a small parking lot on the bay side of Sir Francis Drake Blvd, and a sign marking the trailhead. As you face the estuary(with the road at your back), there’s a gate to the left that you have to go through to start the hike. Just on the other side of the gate are cows! Cows everywhere! Much livestock! So bovine! Wow! They are huge. They are standing right in the middle of the trail looking at you like: «What do you think you’re doing here?» I don’t get a lot of cow time in my life as a city dweller, and as much as I know that a cow isn’t going to kill me, they are huge animals, and they were there first. So for the first half mile or so, we walked on– and off-trail just to avoid the cows(and often, their droppings). We didn’t have any problems, and you probably won’t either, but just so you know, there are a lot of cows to be reckoned with. The cows thinned out after about half a mile(to be clear: they didn’t become skinnier, there we just less of them), and for the remaining 1.5 miles we were able to walk pretty cow-free(and mostly cow patty-free) all the way to the Drake’s Estero estuary. Let’s talk about that for a second… it is called«Drake’s Estero», which is Spanish for«Drake’s Estuary». But Sir Francis Drake was an Englishman, so why bother naming it in Spanish? The bay just outside is called«Drake’s Bay», not«Drake’s Bahia». What the hell? Naming is hard. But I digress. This is a delightful hike, a fairly flat 1.8 miles in each direction, with a great payoff at the end where you can see the full expanse of the estuary laid out in front of you. Listen carefully and you’ll hear the waves crashing out at the sea boundary; they seem to echo through the estuary at a low rumble. We only saw one other hiking party the whole time we were there. A few cars were cycling through the parking lot as we returned, but they probably saw the cows and thought«no whey».
