I was not the first one out of the carpark this morning, there were some earlybirds. Again, I set off before breakfast, but this time I had to wipe the condensation off the inside windows – already it’s getting pretty cold overnight! The road took me back out onto the coast again, only a light fog this morning. I stopped for breakfast of cooked oats on the side of a climbing, winding highway with a great view of the beach and the sand dunes stretching out for miles of coastline.

Shortly after, I stopped at a Sea Lion Cave. The largest in America, they claimed. Unfortunately I will never know because I declined to pay the $14 to walk down the boardwalk to a viewpoint of the cave. I did hear the ticket lady explain that ticket prices were reduced because of the season so they couldn’t guarantee a sea lion viewing. Scam.

Onwards, the winding roads continued sometimes right on the coast, sometimes just out of sight of the ocean. I stopped in at the historic district of Newport after crossing an high-up, beautiful old style bridge. It was a busy port, but the historic architecture had been maintained. I parked and followed some tourists to a section of the dock where multiple sea lions basked on floating pontoons. Californian sea lions apparently that had migrated for the season. I have never heard so much racket. They were all making a noise somewhere between a bark and a howl, carrying on fighting for space on the pontoons and trying to maximise their sunning. I could have watched for hours all the goings-on. They were all males, but there were clearly boss-males and pussy-males, the latter always getting pushed off the pontoons and having to float around until they worked up the guts to piss off another group of lions to get back on.

At Otter Rock, I joined a group of people sitting at the point. I thought it a bit strange that everyone was sitting. Normally at lookouts like these, you head out, take a photo, maybe wander for a bit, then get back to the car. I figured out pretty quickly, everyone was sitting because they were whale watching. There must have been at least five whales (big ones too) flapping around in the surf. Only a few dozen meters from the shore as well! There were no big flips or anything, but lots of blow holes and tail flicks. It was serene to sit and watch for a while, in awe of these big creatures.

At Pacific City, I decided to take a detour off the 101 to keep me closest to the coast and what happy decision that was. I stopped at Cape Kewana, pulled in right in front of a big sand dune and made some lunch, then went exploring while I ate. I walked over the big dune to discover Haystack Rock leering at me just off shore. It is a huge spire of rock that juts out of the ocean and it wouldn’t be the last one I saw either. The beach was totally accessible to everyone. As long as your car was registered and you had a license, you could get on the beach. Plenty of people were taking advantage, with cars parks right at the water launching jetskis and boats. I drove along the coast and loved the feel of the coastal town. The roads were all partially covered in sand, the houses all covered in aged weatherboard. I stopped off a fair few times on the Three Capes Scenic Drive because the view just kept getting better. Near the last cape, Cape Meares, signage displayed that the scenic drive was actually closed past Cape Meares, so I couldn’t make a loop, I’d have to backtrack. I figured I’d come this far anyway, so went in to Cape Meares. I did a short walk to see the largest Spruce Tree in Oregon. It was pretty big, but honestly, after seeing the largest trees in the world in Sequioa National Park, it wasn’t all that hot. The highlight was the lighthouse. Another right place, right time situation, I walked in and they had one spot left on a ten-person tour starting that minute and it was free. Winning! A lovely old man told us all about the lighthouse and how it operated until it’s decommission in 1963, when it got vandalized and most of the crucial parts stolen or broken. It was really cool to hear how it all worked back in the late 1800s with kerosene, a dropping weight to spin the light and Frannell lenses to refract the light into a beam that shone 24 miles in the distance. The wind was definitely up at the Cape, so was nice to get back into a hot car.

Not long after, I was heading over the historic bridge at Astoria and crossing in to Washington. Beautiful bridge crossing over a large body of water. Not much ceremony to signify entering the evergreen state, just a modest sign on top of the bridge stating “ENTERING WASHINGTON”.

The scenery continued into Washington, I stopped for a fair few photos, then started seriously looking for camp. It took some finding, but I managed a pullout on the side of the highway right next to a beach somewhere in the Willapa National Wildlife Refuge. While I still had sunlight left, I took my solar shower (which was completely cold), hung it in a tree on the beach and got myself clean. Nice that I had the whole beach to myself. Dinner and sunset, I’m a happy camper.

What really took my breath away was as the sky was turning the brightest orange after the sunset, a huge flock of birds went overhead, in all sorts of formation, but the sound it made blew me away. All you could hear was the shuffling of their wings. Everything else was so still. The black silhouettes of the birds against the bright sky definitely made me pause and take a breath. Not bad, nature, not bad.