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Sunset Bay, for all it’s loveliness, is a haven for biting bugs. Not to mention squirrels.
We’ve decided on a short day so that we can look round the little town of Bandon, and also do some interiweb business. The campground is 20-odd miles away, so we arrive, set up, and head into town. The only place which has wifi is a bar, oh horror. Another hard day at the office. Must get my hair cut.
Bandon is nice. We’re camped over the other side of the estuary.
An easy day, and an early night. Up tomorrow for a big day, 60 miles-odd, to Gold Beach. We’re aiming for a motel, and possibly a rest day.
We passed a pleasant day and two nights in Honeyman. The hiker-biker site filled up, so we talked with a couple from LA who decided to do the trip three weeks ago, a Brit who is cycling to Singapore, and a Scot who had just that day finished cycling across America from Virginia. He also fought off the racoon which was foraging the site during the night !
We’re off to Umpqua State Park today, which isn’t that far away, but the parks in Oregon are really good. Lots of lily ponds on our road today.
We rode to Reedsport where we raided the supermarket, and replenished our tea supplies.
Then off to the campground, which is small and quiet, on a lovely clear lake.
We’re right in the woods.
One of our neighbours is a guitarist from New Orleans. He visited the guitar and bike shop in Florence I might have mentioned earlier, and made an impulse purchase. These are truly cool: guitar flatties. We chat into the night, and he plays his guitar.
Up late-ish as again, we’re not really going far, just to Sunset Bay State Park. We’re in the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, so the landscape looks like this: big dunes, lakes, evergreens. Lots of people on dune buggies roaring around.
We pass through the towns of North Bend and Coos Bay, entering over another flaming bridge. These often feature no shoulder and a side wind to help matters along.
Then we ride round the estuary to Sunset Bay, famed for it’s sunsets. We make camp and ride out to Simpson’s Reef, near the end of Cape Arago, to see the Sea Lions.
The Pacific was living up to it’s name today. The big rock in the middle has the beasts.
Then we sit at Cape Arago and gaze at the ocean.
And finally, at a sunset. Off to Bandon tomorrow.
Two days in one, as one was pretty short. Up at relative sparrow’s, and off to Newport to pick up some spares at Newport Bike, which was just about open when we rolled up. After breakfast at Stephanie’s Cafe, rather marvellous, we had to ride over another stuffing bridge to get out of town.
We stopped at the little town of Waldport to go to the farmer’s market, in bright sunshine. It’s not the farmer’s market we know, as it doesn’t really sell food, but crafty things like violins and artisan coffee. Hey ho. We satisfied our needs at Ray’s Food Market (“a gift from our family to yours”) and headed for our campground. As we left, things became steadily more and more foggy, until we were right in it, and a minor howling gale. We set up and chatted to our neighbour, a ski instructor from France cycling north from LA to Victoria, BC, with his surfboard.
The beach was lovely, but cold.
Cold food from Ray’s deli, and we hit the hay just before dark again.
Up at 7:30. Everything is wet, and likely to remain so, as the fog is still down and it’s sort-of raining. The few large splats we heard hitting the tent during the night were, in fact, bird droppings, which I have to clean from one side of the tent. We eat egg sandwiches, pack up, and we’re off. We stop for coffee in Yachats, pronounced “yar hats” in a sort of a Sloaney way. Not “Yatchats”, which is what we had been calling it.
On the way out of town, we pass Gender Drive, but apparently it’s a dead end.
It’s a big area for seals and sealions, so Diane goes off to the beach to photograph some. She comes back looking like she’s been immersed in the sea.
Eventually, we breeze into Florence, where we find the Hot Rod Grill. We didn’t eat here, though, but at the fish place over the road, a former gas station called the Fish Station, on the recommendation of a motorcycling couple from Las Vegas that we met at a viewpoint just outside town.
Chowder for Diane, fish tacos for me. Delicious.
Diane’s salad contained whale-shaped croutony things which she really liked. So here’s a picture of one.
Then we arrive at Honeyman State Park and set up in the Hiker-Biker again. In Oregon, these cost 5$ each person per night, with hot showers thrown in. We’ll probably stay here for two nights and take a look around, maybe pop back into Florence for another fish taco and whale croutons.
The 4th of July passed us by, apart from a massive number of bangs during the evening as people let off their fireworks. We thought we would cycle into town, about 4 miles, maybe watch the fireworks, but Lincoln is basically a 5-mile long strip mall next to a beach, so we didn’t, and spent the evening at the site instead, chatting to our neighbours and sharing their fire.
The following morning, Mel posed the question: Why Cook ? So we didn’t, and ate his blueberry pancakes instead.
The weather was glorious again, even though it’s apparently still Christmas.
We passed through Depoe Bay, whale-watching capital of this coast, where according to the board outside the office they’d seen 3 Gray Whales that day. The wind was brisk, though, making for a heavy sea, so we thought we wouldn’t go out today. We then climbed over the next headland on an old loop of US 101, and behold, a whale ! I didn’t get a picture of it, but here’s where it came up. Try to imagine it.
We could see the top of the headland ahead, marked by this nice house, which turned out to be a rather cheesy visitor attraction. Our campground was just at the bottom, and has direct access to the beach under 101.
We’re on another hiker-biker site, so it’s seriously quiet. Another guy rolls in later on, having had a mechanical. He’d had a puncture, and his spare tube valve had broken, so he’d had to fill his front tyre with sand in order to make it to the park.
We retire shortly before dark, and lie around in the tent reading and listening to music until we fall asleep.
Up early, tent soggy, bagel and apricot jam for breakfast, then on the road. A hilly day today, apparently, and this begins as soon as we start riding. Nice view from the top, though.
Just after this we stopped at a very local store to buy coffee and dark chocolate Milky Ways. The place sold everything: gas, car parts, snacks, coffee, beer, shirts with “Sand” written on them. The place is called Sand Lake, and they have a lot of it. Then we’re off to Cape Kiwanda, an up and coming surf area, where we have a taco and buy some supplies for later, including FlipFlop wine, which I found unaccountably amusing.
Then on to the big climb of the day, two-mile hill, as a local on a road bike told us. It rises 750ft. Here’s Diane arriving at the top. She didn’t look this happy halfway up, let me tell you.
So now we’re bunkered down at a campground near sunny Lincoln City. Rest day tomorrow, as we’re feeling a bit knackered. We can do our laundry, check out the bikes, and recharge all of our small portable devices. It’s the 4th of July tomorrow, traditionally a holiday here, celebrating the US getting away from the Brits. They had various celebrations during the evening, including a singsong with ice cream. For a dollar, we got the largest amount of ice cream I think I’ve ever eaten in one sitting. Delicious, too.
It was a beautiful if windy evening when we went to bed, but it was foggy when we awoke, so the tent is soggy again. Seems fairly standard now. Anyway, we discovered that our Lumix camera takes photos if you tap the screen on the back, so here’s one Diane took by accident.
The fog has cleared by the time we’ve finished up our breakfast at Wanda’s in Nehalem, and we have a lovely ride along the river and out to the sea again.
They seem fully tsunami-aware around here, with signs telling you you are entering or leaving a tsunami area, and also where to run when things go bad.
We passed through the little town of Garibaldi, presumably named after the excellent biscuit. The white blob in this shot is a large G on the hillside. Presumably they were going for the full monty, Hollywood style, but couldn’t afford it.
We then rode through Tillamook, the big cheese in this area (ha, ha), and had coffee while we decided which route to take.
Whatever, I forgot to mention that Diane and I had an, er, coming together this morning which resulted in me falling off. Luckily, I didn’t injure my wrists by letting my left knee and ribs take the impact. Hurt like hell. Anyway, I noticed in Tillamook that my headset had come loose (the handlebars had been twisted round because of the impact), so I borrowed a couple of 32mm spanners from Trask Mountain Cycle, and Bob’s your uncle.
Anyway, shortly thereafter, we passed mile 500. A quarter of the way to San Diego. Here’s the evidence, and also one of those shots of the two of us taken with the camera held at arm’s length, next to possibly the most disgusting portable toilet on the West Coast.
We’re staying at the hiker-biker in Cape Lookout State Park, which is lovely.
However, a load of guys and gals roll up: they’re going to a wedding just up the way, and they’ve cycled the 100 miles from Portland. Most are toting beer, so they all set up and then sit up chatting til the wee small hours, and singing to the tunes on a ukelele which someone has brought.
Eventually, we drop off to sleep.
A sparkly blue day for our first cycling in Oregon, where we’d been promised fantastic scenery. The Oregonians, in their wisdom, have established the Oregon Coast Cycle Trail, with helpful signs showing you where to go, even if they do run along good ‘ol US 101, our old friend.
We saw lots of wildlife, mostly birdy, but signs promised us Elk. We didn’t see any.
First stop, Seaside. An apt name, as it’s by the sea. Lewis and Clark’s guys spent a winter here boiling seawater to get salt. They should have had a cherry pastry from the bakery like we did, much nicer.
Next, Cannon Bay, hard by Ecola Beach (which plays a passing role in Point Break, sitting in for Australia, film lovers). This is called Haystack Rock, and is supposed to be home to Tufted Puffins, but again, no joy.
We then cycled through an uphill tunnel on 101 which made every car sound like a Black Hawk helicopter was chasing you, and then climbed up to the high point of the day. Bad hair, Paul.
We are staying in Nehalem State Park, right on the Pacific, in the hiker-biker campground, on the spit of land behind us in the shot above.
A jolly evening was had when we found we were near the little town of Manzanita, whence we rode and spent a couple of hours in the evening. Mirror Pond was the new beer of the evening. Sounds like a character from Dr Who to me.
The weather forecast, a fickle and changeable thing in the Pacific Northwest, says it’ll be nice weather all the way through the July 4th weekend. And indeed, it isn’t actually raining when we get up, and we can pack up the tent sort of dry-ish. Breakfast of camp scrambled eggs and bread, whilst watching hummingbirds and swallows buzzing around – neat!
Within a couple of miles of leaving the campsite we passed a couple walking a goat – but we didn’t feel brave enough to take a photo. It was a picturesque route around Willapa Bay, mostly empty roads, occasionally spoiled by campervans and RVs – moving on to get camped for 4th July weekend we supposed. Lots of huge logging trucks on the road but luckily they were all driving towards us.
We were approaching Astoria when we saw the bridge. We knew it was long, but it seems to have been built piecemeal, several different sections – and 6km of it, with hardly any shoulder for bicycles. Luckily for us some roadworks on the bridge meant one-way traffic. The photo following gives no indication of the gradient of the final sections, since we were so busy pedalling uphill we couldn’t take any more photos. This one was taken from the top of the toppiest part. You can just see the rest of the bridge stretching out into the distance behind a furiously pedalling Diane.
After our heart rates dropped back into the low hundreds, we proceeded to the Riverside Motel, and then thereafter to the Fort George microbrewery and restaurant, where we had a fine time.
They serve their beer in Mason jars, for some reason, but it’s mighty fine all the same.
We’re maintaining a list of all the microbrews we’ve had since arriving in the New World, and it’s getting quite long now. My research shows that IPA is the most popular brew, and that cloudy beers are in, as we can see above. It doesn’t stop them from being absolutely delicious, albeit very strong; nothing below 5.2ABV! So far, we haven’t had a single pint of what you might think of as US beer: no Coors, no Bud, no nothing. Microbreweries are everywhere, and they rule. Awesome! Actually, we need to pronounce it “r-sum” to sound convincing :’)
Wet, Very, very wet. Today it rained, for most of the day. The forecast was for showers. If this was a shower, it was a jumbo, super-size shower, as it ran for about 6 hours. That notwithstanding, Diane was very happy again today apart from the wet.
Anyhoo, we didn’t take many pictures because of the aforementioned wet. We did arrive in the town of Raymond soaking wet and find our way to the Corner Cafe to partake of an all-day breakfast. There, we encountered three other pairs of cyclists doing the same route, one of whom had started in Alaska and was cycling to Ushuaia, in Argentina. Made us feel a bit like wusses.
So, off we went again. It dried up a bit in the afternoon, so we arrived at our campground, run by KOA (Kampgrounds of America), where it wasn’t actually raining. This is a commercial site, and features a shop, a laundry and a cooking shelter for those of us who don’t arrive in a massive RV towing a full-size Dodge Ram. We did all our laundry and cooked under the shelter. Marvellous!
Three days in one ! Bargain. An early ferry over to Bremerton on a blue day. It was so clear, Mount Rainier (pronounced Ran-ear) put in an appearance.
On the boat we meet a number of cyclists, including a group of three who are riding supported from Seattle to San Francisco in 11 days ! We’ve got it pencilled in for about 5 weeks. Bremerton has a naval shipyard, and seems to be the final resting place for old aircraft carriers like the USS Kitty Hawk. I didn’t take any pictures in case anyone got shirty.
We’re skirting the Olympic mountains, which also showed their heads today.
Our destination is the Shelton Inn, a classic motel, as there are no campgrounds near enough to the route. They’re having a classic car rally in town as we arrive.
The following morning is much less nice, with rain in the air. Off we go for Montesano, to stay in Lake Sylvia State Park. It’s a fairly heads-down sort of ride, mostly on freeways. We pass the never-commissioned Satsop Nuclear Power Station: there’s not much going on in Satsop now.
We arrive at Montesano and buy some food. The camp ground is up a hill out of town, and it begins to rain as we’re setting up. It pretty much does this for the whole night. Our trusty Hilleberg holds it off, but it’s pretty damp all the same. The next pitch is taken by a solo tourist who’s been on the road for 8 weeks, and has cycled from Nebraska. He looked pretty damp.
Up at 7:30 for the final haul to the coast. Again, it’s heads down. We pass through Aberdeen, birthplace of the front-man of a famous Seattle band. Can you guess who ? If not, click here.
Diane is very happy today.
Then we’re on the final push to the coast. We set up camp at Twin Harbors State Park, and Paul has to clean the tent which is covered in crap from last night’s camp site.
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