Wednesday August 30th
First thing in the morning, after breakfast, I did the short walk from my campsite to climb to the lookout, with great views of the surrounding coastline, with many little rocky outcrops sticking out of the water near the coast.
Starting only a few minutes drive from the campground was the Samuel H Boardman Scenic Corridor, a stretch of highway with some beautiful scenery – more cliffs and even larger chunks or rock in the sea, some of them were almost like hills, even with trees growing on top, but jagged. There were inlets and corridors through the rocks in places, which made for an impressive landscape.
I wanted to hike to a beach called “Secret Beach”. I had found a trail on AllTrails that went down there. It turned out to be quite secret indeed. There were no signs mentioning it, but with the help of AllTrails I found the start of the trail, which was fairly high above the beach, and wound down through forest to the beach. I ended up on a very steep, almost vertical section right at the end, with a rope to hang onto to get up and down. It was a scramble to get to the beach. I wasn’t sure if this was Secret Beach, but there was a lady there flying a drone, and she confirmed that this was indeed it. Thankfully I found an easier way up, on the other side of the beach, which also afforded great views of the beach from above.
A little further along was Cape Sebastien, a pretty beach that was almost deserted. Another 50 minutes or so took me Sisters Rock, an impressive tall bluff with bare rock at the bottom, and some vegetation on top. I didn’t see anyone down there either. I just took some photos and moved on.
About an hour later I came to Bandon Beach a bit after 1pm, which also had a parking lot well above the beach, with views of large rocky chunks in the water. It was a sunny day, and I ate my sandwich at a picnic area while looking at the view, then went down to the beach itself afterwards. There were quite a few people around, though not many on the beach itself. Some of these rocky “hills” were immense, with people looking tiny next to them.
I set off again. The drive along the Oregon coast was a leisurely one, with the maximum speed limit along highway 101 being 55mph (88km/h) through the nearly two days of driving through there.
From here onwards there were a number of very large estuaries, with bridges spanning parts of them. You could look out from the bridge and see a long way out along the estuary, towards the sea. About an hour after lunch, I took a turn off from the main highway to see Cape Arago, on a raised headland. There was quite a large seal colony there, and I met a very friendly man at one of the lookouts who talked about the colony, and lent me his binoculars to see them better. The headland had some pretty views of forested coastline. Everything was very green and lush in Oregon.
By then it was approaching 4pm and I still had a fair bit of driving left in the day's journey, so I didn’t do a lot of sightseeing from there to the campground. I think this was a section of the drive that felt a bit more built-up than the coastal drive I’d done so far. After passing through a number of towns and over more estuaries and rivers, I stopped briefly at Heceta Head a couple of hours later, a pretty spot with an interesting bridge taking the highway over another river going into the sea. It had a lighthouse, which I got a look at from a distance as I was approaching. When I got to the beach next to the lighthouse, the lighthouse itself was closed. The area was considered part of a state park, and they wanted money for parking. I didn’t have time to spend long, so I moved on.
Then after a quick look at nearby Cape Perpetua with a narrow, forested inlet which was pretty in the late afternoon sun, I drove the hour or so remaining to the campground. Quite a bit of the road through that area was quite hilly and windy again, which made for some good views, though it wasn’t always easy to find a place to stop.
Like Harris Beach, the Beverly Beach campground was also right near a beach, with easy walking access from my campsite, which backed onto thick vegetation, and apparently a creek in there somewhere. The campground was quite forested, with very tall conifers – I think some kind of spruce – though you could still see some other sites around. Although it was on the other side of the highway from the beach, the highway went over a bridge, and there was a walking track under the bridge to the beach. This was a bit more populated than Harris Beach was, but it was a long, wide beach, so there was plenty of room for everyone.
It was starting to get more cloudy towards sunset, and I got some nice colours as the sun went down, with reflections on the wet sand. It was a pretty scene with people dotted here and there, and a lighthouse starting to shine in the distance. I think it was Yaquina Head lighthouse. Sunset was near 8pm while I was making my way up the west coast.
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