The coast of Oregon

It's been a while since I last posted a blog. We've been on a mammoth, exhausting drive across Idaho and Oregon, to get to the Oregon coastline. At last we have arrived. The weather in Oregon has been rainy and cold, so we just headed across as quick as we could. The scenery was second to none, but the weather made it impossible to enjoy. We arrived at the coast three days ago and are slowly driving south towards California.

The Oregon coastline is famed as one of the most beautiful drives in America. And that's not untrue. The shoreline is beautiful. Most of the beaches are protected as state parks, and so they are clean and perfectly unspoilt. Oregon has a lot of trees, and these grow right up to the beach edges. It makes for some stunning scenery.

chips. I've so desperately missed chips since leaving home. They just We arrived firstly in Newport, Oregon. The locals told us that the best scenery was either heading north or south, but we were tired so we stayed for two days in Newport. Our RV park was next to the big bridge there, by the docks, and at night we could hear seals singing! The first day we arrived at dinner time and so we just eat and relaxed for the night. But on our second day we ventured out. Dan had discovered a 'fish n chip' shop that claimed to sell real English fish and chips. I've been missing proper chips so badly since we left. Chips just don't exist here. Chips means crisps here, and if you order burger and chips, you get burger and a packet of crisps. So disappointing. And everything else comes with fries, which just aren't the same. So we headed to this fish and chip shop for lunch. The place was packed! People were queueing for their chips. It was a good sign. But sadly, despite the queue, the chips were nothing more than crinkle cut oven chips, all soggy and very disappointing. If someone opened a real chip shop here, they could make a fortune!

After our soggy pretend chips we just headed off for a drive, and stumbled accidentally upon Yaquina Head area of natural beauty. We were allowed into it free of charge with our America the Beautiful Pass, so we headed in to see what was there. We were so lucky to stumble across this place! The main attraction here was the old lighthouse, which we toured. But down by the black pebble beach was seal island. Despite the cold and the wind we headed down to this beach where the kids were delighted to find rock pools full of sea life. Starfish of all sorts of colours, sea urchins, sea anemones, hermit crabs, huge mussels and clams, were but some of the creatures living here. I was as excited as them to explore the rock pools. The beach was a hive of wildlife activity. In the sea were some huge rocks, almost islands. One of them was topped with literally thousands of sea birds. One seemed to be home to a large family of Pelicans. And the other few were inhabited by seals, and their new pups. Most of the seals were sunbathing on the rocks, calling to each other occasionally. But four of the seals were playing in the ocean, near the shore, where we could just sit and watch. They were waiting for the pelicans to catch fish. As the pelicans pulled a fish out of the sea, the seals would swim over and steal it. We had so much fun sitting there for an hour just watching the seals and pelicans playing in the ocean. It was magical.

The following day we started heading south towards California, where our trip will finish in just over 2 weeks time. The coastal drive has been beautiful. Beaches full of driftwood. We stopped last night in an RV park near some sand dunes, and this morning we will take a walk along the dunes before driving south some more. We are chasing the sunshine it seems. Hopefully we will see some more sun before we leave!