Saturday September 2nd
The Lord provided another lovely sunny day, and next on my list was further up the west coast, Rialto Beach. This had a hike to a place called Hole in the Wall, a huge rock just on the water’s edge with a large hole through it – the hole itself was probably 30 feet high.
It was the long weekend proper now, and parking was a bit scarce everywhere, but I was able to get a spot each place I went to thank the Lord. There were plenty of people around, but it wasn’t quite as crowded as I had feared. There were places later on in the trip which were more crowded, even though school was back in, and it was a weekday.
It took 40 minutes or so to do a fairly leisurely walk along the beach to the rock. There were a lot of other people doing the same thing, but everyone was spread out along the walk, so it was far from crowded. The Hole in the Wall was one of several interesting rock formations in the sea, and as usual the beach was always fringed with forest right up to the edge.
The hole itself was impressive. So many people were stopping to get their photos taken, and I was trying to get a photo without people in it. After a while I did get an opportunity with only people in the far distance. It was a busy spot!
After walking back I went to La Push, which was on the coast just the other side of a river running through, but required a bit of a drive back inland along the river to a bridge, then back to the sea again on the other side. It was in an Indian reservation – there were a number on the peninsula. I had lunch at the first of three La Push beaches, which was in the actual small town, and was fairly quiet. There was a log I could sit on while I ate the lunch I’d made. Some work was being done a little distance away in what looked like a channel with a breakwater next to it. There were no logs along this beach, I guess because it was next to the town.
Off I went to the second beach after lunch, which was, in contrast, very popular. There was a parking lot and also overflow parking, where I got a spot. I started off to see it in thongs, but realised then that there was a 1.3km walk each way to get there, through the ubiquitous forest, so I had to go back and change into more appropriate footwear. The walk was pretty, and the beach had more vegetation-topped large rocky mounds, a pretty spot. It wasn’t too crowded – the walk kept the numbers down I guess.
After this I thought I would have a look at the top of the peninsula, the northernmost part. I headed back inland, through Forks again, and up to Clallam Bay, stopping briefly at a car park there by the beach. There was some kind of river flowing right next to the beach, with the beach beyond. Apparently there was a bridge over it, though I’m not sure I remember seeing it. It didn’t look terribly exciting anyway, so I moved on to get a nice view of the marina at Sekiu, then followed the road for some time as it wound through forest, with some nice views of the sea, and the Canadian coast clearly visible – a place I was heading very shortly! It was a fairly slow drive as the road was fairly windy, and the speed limit for the last part was only 35mph.
I was planning to go to the far tip or as near to it as I could, but towards the last town, Neah Bay, there was a sign saying I was entering an Indian reservation, and they wanted US$20 to visit the area. This bought a year’s access, but I had only a short amount of time to have a quick look, and didn’t think it was worth $20 to spend a few minutes there, especially since I’d already spent money on a National Park pass and also a State Park pass for Washington! Time was getting on, and I still wanted to visit another rainforest, so headed back to the Sol Duc falls, another very popular attraction.
It was about two hours to get there, but it was more or less on the way to Port Angeles where I was to stay for the next two nights. I hoped that it might not be so crowded as I got there about 5.45pm. Parking was again a problem, but thank the Lord I found a spot where someone was just pulling out, and was able to snag it! It was about 20 minutes walk to the waterfall, which was a beautiful spot, again surrounded by lush rainforest.
It was after six by now, and I wanted to get to my campsite before dark. This was one I had arranged on HipCamp, and I had been in contact with the host, to make sure it was ok to get there lateish – a practice I had adopted fairly regularly after the episode of getting to the Phoenix RV park with no code for the gate. Heading back towards Port Angeles I came on Crescent Lake, which was large, and beautiful especially in the evening light with the hills beyond. The road wound around the edge of it for quite a while, and I got out and took a few quick photos around 7pm at one spot.
I arrived at my destination, High Hopes Farm, a few km west of Port Angeles out in the country, I think a bit before 8pm. The lady was friendly, and we chatted for a while. There were quite a few people staying there, and she pointed me to a spot up a hill which was nice, except very sloping. (Sloping spots were a bit of a bane, there were a few others at different campsites that weren’t very level, which made it not so pleasant to sleep in, if your head ended up lower than your feet!)
She then suggested a couple of other places, one up another hill, but it was just driving up a grassy, fairly steep slope, and the van couldn’t make it up there, and the other one would have been nice and snug under a big tree, but the van was too tall to get in! So I just ended up parking next to the tree out in the open in a fairly level spot. It was fairly private anyway, the nearest other person wasn’t very close, and though I could see the road, it was a fair distance away. There was a rustic but nicely decorated toilet nearby. It was getting dark, so I made some dinner and went to bed.
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