Bunny always claims she wants to get up early and get moving. The reality is much different than the claim. I got up at 7:30 and turned on the coffee before I disappeared into the bathroom for a while. When I emerged into the light, I made two cups for us. I delivered Bunny’s coffee to her nightstand and promptly got reprimanded for disturbing her. She finally got out of bed at 10 after watching an episode of “Property Brothers.” I turned in the room keys at 10:59.
Bunny was torn between breakfast and lunch. We chose Subway hoping for eggs. I was relieved that they had already stopped forcing them on people. We each got foot long meals. She ate half and carried the other half out for later. I ate all of mine rather than add to my pack weight.
We had no idea what to expect from the trail. As soon as we got out of Brookings, we got great views of the coast. There are plenty of rocks just off shore making for dramatic scenery along the coast. Waves break on the rocks and shoot high into the air. Many of the rocks are large enough to be named islands providing lots of breeding ground for migratory birds.
I did discover the answer to an age old question everyone ponders at some point in their lives—where do all of my missing socks go? It’s a surprisingly simple answer…the Oregon coast. As we had a two mile road walk after leaving Harris Beach State Park, Bunny and I noticed an incredible number of socks along the highway. I figured they were “homing socks” and had come to Oregon in the hopes of catching a westerly tide to take them back to their place of origin in China.
We just assumed that we would have a lot of beach walking on the coast trail. We weren’t expecting dark forests allowing almost no light in. The trail spends a lot of time in Old growth forests on cliffs above the coast. All of the mountain streams make their way to the coast giving us plenty of freshwater sources and magnificent water falls. Navigation is straightforward, Pacific on the left, Route 101 on the right. This is a narrow corridor to follow.
With the late start this morning, we didn’t intend to do more than ten miles total. Around 4, we decided to start looking for a decent camping spot near water. We could find plenty of great spots without water, or we could find good water but no level ground. The best spot we found was actually on Whaleshead Beach above all the driftwood, but Bunny is not quite ready to attempt another night on the beach just yet.
The last time we camped on a beach was in Wales on the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path. Being from the Midwest, our exposure to oceans and tides is quite limited. George and Karen had decided to stay in a B&B for the night, so we saw this as a great opportunity to camp on a beach. Bunny was very frightened by the thought of getting washed away from the high tide, so I chose a spot much higher than any of the flotsam and jetsam deposited on the beach by the tides. Around 2 in the morning, she frantically woke me up screaming that we were too close to the water and the tide was coming in our tent. I could hear the waves breaking well below us. I turned on a light to discover that she had laid on her bite valve from her bladder and flooded the floor of the tent with her drinking water. She’s never forgotten her narrow escape from being washed away on the tide.
We pushed on and found a grassy spot behind a parking lot. There were picnic tables, a bear-proof trash can, and a privy nearby so we went ahead and set up. There’s a stream just a couple hundred feet back on the trail where we can get water. After we got all situated and ate supper, we decided to head down to the beach and possibly catch the sunset. That’s when we saw the “no camping” sign in the parking lot. We’re going to stick with our strong suit and plead ignorance if we get caught.
EFG