North Pacific
After our week in the city, we leave Portland to explore the Oregon coast, basing ourselves at Cannon Beach, a popular seaside town, teeming with art and craft galleries, fish, chips and burger joints and charming cedar-clad houses.
From here, we hike in Ecola State Park’s Sitka spruce forests and explore the Three Capes scenic drive, with forays into the forest to soak in the hundred shades of healing green.
The coastline is a shutterbug’s dream landscape, with frothy waves pounding the rocky outcrops, giant sea stacks and stormy skies, with golden sand and colourful rock pools at low tide.
We stop for fish, chips and chowder at the Oregon Smoke house in Rockaway Beach, a small one-horse town, with a wild-west-faded-seaside feel about it. I don’t know whether to be flattered or weirded out when the ex-Navy tourist guide says to Mike “thank you for bringing your daughter!”
We end our driving tour at the famous Tillamook cheese factory, seeing the cheese rolling off the production line, then enjoying a grilled cheddar sandwich….mmmmm!
Beside the seaside
Continuing our journey north from Cannon Beach to Port Townsend, we enter Washington state, passing Aberdeen (where Kurt Cobain of thrash metal band Nirvana was born), through Indian Reservations (always with a casino on them for some reason), along the shores of sea lochs, surrounded by lush forests.
It was along the coast here that the Twilight vampire movies were made, for those of you 15-year-old girls who follow that kinda thing! We didn’t spot any vampires, but we did have some hairy drives over narrow high bridges and cliff-top roads and I even have a go at driving! Did you know it is illegal to have a delay of 5 or more vehicles behind you without ‘turning out’ (pulling over). I find it quite ironic that I could be breaking the law by going too slow!
We stay in time-warped Port Townsend, which in its heyday was the biggest port in the U.S. outside of New York! Hard to believe now, with many of the Victorian facades falling into disrepair, despite regeneration in the 1970s. The town supports a 1950s diner and ice cream parlour, and the high street is punctuated by art galleries, boutique clothing shops, antiquarian bookstores, cafes and restaurants, with families standing in line for candy and ice cream on the first day of the school holidays!
The Bed and breakfast where we stay is a Charleston-style modern house, with an old-world feel, and we are treated to a sumptuous breakfast and afternoon tea on the porch!
Island hopping
From Port Townsend to Whidbey Island, we take the car ferry to the other side of the Puget Sound, with great views of Mount Baker and the Cascade mountain range on the way.
Whidbey Island is home to pretty coastal towns, surrounded by lush pine forest, where we enjoy lunch at Coupeville, and take a stroll around the galleries and craft shops in La Conner. I even stumble across a Zoltar fortune-telling booth, which, if you have seen the Tom Hanks film Big you will realise how excited I was to have my fortune told and my wish granted (he did say something about travelling a lot which is pretty cool!).
Mini Portlandia
Bellingham (pronounced Belling-ham) reminds us of a slightly less-eccentric slice of Portland, a green, laid-back student town, with plenty tasty cafes and brewpubs, and easy access to state parks and the San Juan Islands.
We enjoy a walk in Whatcom Falls park, visit the retro cinema and take a cruise around the San Juan Islands, even spotting some ‘stinky’ Minke whales (no orcas yet!). The San Juan Islands was the setting for David Guterson’s book/film Snow Falling on Cedars, a murder-mystery embedded in the racial tensions of Japanese internment during the second-world war. Hard to imagine those issues now in this multicultural setting, with sushi restaurants happily making a living alongside fish and chip shops and burger bars.
Leaving the San Juan Islands and Bellingham, we board our Amtrak train to head north, crossing another border, to Vancouver British Columbia for the final leg of our journey!
Moose you already!
Kath and Mike xx
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