Thursday August 31st
It had been sunny the last few days, but after the accumulation of clouds the previous evening, I was greeted by a cool, misty day in the morning, which became quite rainy after a while, though thankfully it was just misty while I was outside cooking breakfast. The cloudy and wet day gave a different view of the coastal scenery, with a lot of low clouds sitting on hills. It was interesting to see the coast from another perspective.
I was going to start with a visit to a place called Devil’s Punchbowl not far from the campground, but it seems like I ended up a little further along at Otter Crest. It was supposed to have a great view, but it was completely fogged in. I asked the Lord if it could clear, and I did get some good views after a while. There was still cloud around, but I could see quite a bit of the vista. I had a quick look at Otter Creek a short way further along, then drove a while through some rainy weather to Pacific City, skipping the planned viewpoints in between, because the weather was very uninviting!
Pacific City was an interesting place. I found a parking lot with beach access, and climbed quite a tall sandhill to get over to the beach. From the top of the sandhill there was a good view of the town, which had a sizeable river running through it, with people fishing on the sides, and cloud-covered mountains behind. It was still quite cool and misty.
I followed a scenic route that went by McPhillips Beach, then a short distance further on I found Sitka Sedge, which I think they also called a slough. We might call it a wetland I guess. It was very pretty, with estuaries coming in, and fingers of land with a lot of grasses on them. It reminded me of pictures I had seen of what was perhaps a similar area in Denmark which someone I know really loves, and I could see why, after being there. It was quite colourful, probably because the autumn colours had started in, which made for many different shades of green and yellow.
A little further along the scenic route was Cape Lookout. I didn’t do the hike to the edge of the cape – it was fairly long, and the weather wasn’t conducive to views. Instead I visited the beach at the bottom of the cape, which was pretty, with forest and vegetation clinging to rocks steeply sloping to the beach, and hills behind covered in mist. I had a chat with a nice couple who were walking there.
A short drive from there brought me to the scenic town of Oceanside, which had a pretty beach with houses perched above up a steep hillside, no doubt with excellent views. I stopped to have lunch while enjoying the views and had a look at the beach there. The rain had stopped, and it was starting the get less misty. The road ran along up a little peninsula, with Cape Meares near the top, a high headland with some rugged cliffs and inlets, and good views. A path led down a little way to a lighthouse at the edge of the headland.
From here the road wound around the other side of the headland and back to the main highway at Tillamook. I still had a lot of driving to do, so I headed north to the Washington border. The road wound up into the hills again for a while, before getting back to the coast. It was quite built up in places toward the Washington border, and I travelled through a number of large towns or almost cities.
There was a lot of water at the border, with the highway going along a long causeway, then into the town of Astoria, and across an enormous bridge that went over into Washington. The road goes up in a circle to gain height to get onto the high bridge, which I discovered later was over 6km long. It definitely did seem to go on for a long time! The bridge was quite impressive looking, and I wanted to find a spot on the Washington side to get a photo of it, but didn’t find anywhere to stop where I could see it.
The first stop I made on the Washington side was Fort Columbia, which was interesting to see. It was much more modern looking than the Russian Fort Ross, and was set up to protect the mouth of the Columbia River, active in three wars, ending in WW II, and was eventually decommissioned.
There was some pretty scenery further along, and the start of some autumn colour in the leaves. I was noticing more deciduous trees as I went north. At South Bend, the road went along one side of a narrow estuary, then around through a town, and back around the other side. I stopped and took some photos at a place where there were some RVs parked.
I chatted briefly with the owners of one of the RVs there, who commented unfavourably about the weather, though it had cleared up a lot by then. There were some pretty views and reflections on the quiet water where boats were harboured. I think I took a wrong turn here, and headed off on the main highway instead of the road leading to my campground, and had to double back.
Grayland Beach campground was where I was to spend the night. There was a walk to the beach again, and I had a look. Well, it was an enormous, and very flat beach. It took something like 15 minutes to walk from where the vegetation ended at the dunes to where the water actually was. It was cool and I had shoes on, and it was tricky to find a way through where I wasn’t stepping in water. I did make it to where the actual water started, pretty much. Looking back, it was a long way to the edge of the beach.
I could see how people could get disoriented in a place like that, if it was misty, and not know which way to go to get back to the land. The beach stretched a long distance each side too, a massive expanse of sand. It was a fair walk back to the campground, first to the edge of the dunes, then it was still a bit of a way to the campground itself.
I guess I didn’t notice when I was choosing the site, or maybe there weren’t many free when I booked, I can’t remember, but my site backed onto one of the roads going through the campground, so it wasn’t very private at all. Thankfully the road was maybe 20 metres away, but it was still pretty public! It was just as well I was only spending the night there. There were a lot of trees and bushes through the campground, and I think most of the sites were quite private.
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