By Jennifer Best

Photo by Jennifer Best
	The view from the 11-acre Dinosaur Cave Park takes in cliffs, the Pacific Ocean and nearby Shelter Cove.

PISMO BEACH - The first thing you wonder about Dinosaur Caves is: Where's the Dinosaur?

The 11-acre open space on Shell Beach Road known as Dinosaur Caves Park is easy enough to spot, dinosaur or no dinosaur. It is the first large vacant lot south of Shell Beach and it is usually dotted with locals walking their dogs along the bluffs. Kayakers like cruising the kelp beds and paddling in and out of the caves below.

But where's the dinosaur? It's a mystery.

Local history has it that an amusement park once called this property home. H. Douglas Brown began building a concrete dinosaur here in 1948, but never finished due to public outcry. The headless behemoth was removed in the 1950s.

The amusement park lot with the million-dollar views from above and sea caves below is now on track to become the next seaside park in Pismo Beach. It doesn't look spectacular just yet, but it's open for walking, photography and general enjoyment. It's an 11-acre slice of the Shell Beach bluffs - the way they used to look.

But the best views from Dinosaur Caves Park are underground. Those with the sea in their blood, or perhaps just an adventurous streak will find Dinosaur Caves Park the perfect spot. The surf has cut caves into the bluffs below the park and kayakers regularly tour the holes as well as the kelp beds just beyond the surf line.

Guided tours are available at Central Coast Kayaks, 1879 Shell Beach Road. Call (805) 773-3500 for more information and reservations.

Topside, Dinosaur Caves offers wonderful views and wildlife too. Summer Evans lives across the street from the park and enjoys watching for wildlife here with her baby daughter. They regularly spot squirrels, rabbits, ducks and all sorts of birds. Just over the cliff, they can also spot sea lions, dolphins, otters, pelicans and other sea birds.

A large hole in the center of the property makes for occasional headlines and regular raised eyebrows from first-time visitors. The hole is a window to the caves below - and the swirling surf that hisses through them. Before the city placed two chain-link fences around the hole in recent years, children and careless adults regularly fell through the eroded cave ceiling.

The city of Pismo Beach considered allowing the development of a hotel here during the 1990s, but finally gave in to the public outcry and purchased the land. It continues seeking funding to help cover the purchase, development and maintenance of the property, but construction of the park is officially slated to begin later this year.

Plans for Dinosaur Caves Park call for public restrooms, a playground, two gazebos, an observation telescope, an amphitheatre with its own natural seating area, a learning center and a fishing platform in the cove at the bottom of the bluff. Walkways will crisscross the property.

"We're lucky to have this last open spot," Evans said. "I'm glad they're going to make it a park. It would be awful if they put a hotel or houses or something here and blocked the great view that, really, anyone can enjoy right now."

If You Go: the park is on Shell Beach Road, and open to the public. Unimproved pathways have been beaten through the shoulder-high grasses by joggers, dog walkers and families along the bluff fence and crisscrossing the park. The bluff beyond the fence is unstable, so hikers are strongly advised to heed posted warnings and remain on stable ground.

- Jennifer Best is a freelance writer and San Luis Obispo native based on the Central Coast.

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