Going Local: Dominic Monaghan

Nature-loving Dominic Monaghan

Biran Bowen Smith

BEST FOR STELLAR VIEWS
GRIFFITH PARK
I was born in Germany and moved to Britain when I was 11 but I’ve been in LA for 10 years now and one of my favourite places to get in touch with the natural world is Griffith Park, which is close to me. The Griffith Observatory is in the park and it’s been hugely influential since the 1960s. They discovered a lot of amazing things with their telescope looking up at the night sky and it’s a great place to look at the wider world. And within the park you’ll also find coyote, skunks, man cats and deer and a lot of interesting animals.
4730 Crystal Springs Drive, Los Angeles, California, 90027 (tel: (213) 473 0800; www.griffithobs.org)

BEST PLACE TO SPOT ENDANGERED SPECIES
LOS PADRES NATIONAL FOREST, SANTA BARBARA
I like to go to Santa Barbara too, which is about three hours drive north up the Pacific Coast from LA. It’s a little bit of a sleepy part of California and it’s probably better known for being a bit of a retirement community but there’s some great forests there that are filled with wildlife and animals. In Los Padres National Forest, you’ll find loads of endangered species including the peregrine falcon, the mountain lion and the California mule deer and there’s a condor sanctuary too. It’s a magical place.
(tel: (805) 968 6640; www.fs.usda.gov/lpnf/)

BEST FOR ROCK CLIMBING 
JOSHUA TREE NATIONAL PARK
I love the Joshua Tree National Park. It was made famous by the band U2 and it’s a desert in the middle of California and there’s not a lot there but it’s an awesome place. The temperature is very hot and there are lots of huge limestone structures and rattlesnakes and scorpions and coyotes. As the heat is so fierce during the day, the place really comes alive at night and you’ll see kangaroo rats, bighorn sheep and roadrunners. Some of the rock formations were formed 100 million years ago and it’s an amazing place for rock climbing, bird watching, astronomy and watching the wildlife. It's a seriously cool place.
(www.joshua.tree.national-park.com)

BEST FOR WILDERNESS
29 PALMS
I also like this place called 29 Palms, which is another little desert community and is home to a small Indian reservation belonging to the 29 Palms Band Of Mission Indians. It’s quiet, there’s not a lot to do but it’s fun just looking around, going into the wilderness and having some fun. It’s the sort of place you can get lost, in which is exactly what I did one Thanksgiving a few years ago when I spent the night in there taking magic mushrooms with Viggo Mortensen, my friend from Lord Of The Rings. We were both feeling a little crazy at the time and it was one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences that you’ll never forget and I’m glad I had it with someone as cool as Viggo as Viggo is the man.
(www.ci.twentynine-palms.ca.us)

BEST FOR ESCAPE
BIG SUR
Big Sur is in the north of California. It’s a forest environment so you drive into this place that just has these enormous trees everywhere. It’s much more of a secluded forest type of scenario with deer and lots of different types of birds. It’s kind of rustic and you can stay in log cabins and stuff like that and again it’s another place to just disappear. I go up there if I need to write or I need to spend a little bit of time away from LA. It’s cheap and people are friendly and there’s not a lot to do apart from explore the local environment. Once the sun goes down, that’s pretty much it for the night. It’s a really cool place.
(www.bigsurcalifornia.org)