Oregon to San Francisco, 7th to 8th November 2018. (Trip summary and links to posts.)
.
.
Bandon
.
Coquille Point views.
We were staying the night at Bandon, (perhaps as in ‘Bandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here) at the south end of the Oregon coast. We were staying at a motel very near the coast so we got up in the early morning for the view, and this and following images were taken from Coquille Point.
.
.
.
. 
This is probably looking in the other direction from the same viewpoint.
.
.
.
. 
I think, looking further south.
.
.
.
. 
The shape of this rock reminds me of Lion Rock at Piha, west of Auckland, NZ except that Lion Rock is connected to Piha Beach.
.
.
.
. 
For all these early images, I can see names of rocks on the map but I am not able to attribute them to the images.
.
.
.
. 
That must be a lifesaving tower on the right.
.
.
.
. 
A challenging route for a canoe.
.
.
.
. 
A lone person bringing the scale into focus.
.
.
.
.
Port Orford
. 
Stop!
We are half an hour’s drive further south at Port Orford. Where we were staying in Bandon didn’t offer breakfast so we must have driven straight here after photographing the rocks, and stopped at a café.
In this part of the world, it’s important to regulate the movement of wildlife as well as humans. The deer is stopping at the Stop sign. He knows that if he doesn’t and he makes a dash through the stop sign and up the road, not only may he get a ticket, but he may be blasted by that tank waiting on the other side of the road.
.
.
.
.
It is a Columbian White-Tailed Deer, mainly found along the lower Columbia River in Washington and Oregon. This one though is part of a population a bit further south in Douglas County, Oregon. They were listed as endangered in 1967 when only 450 of them remained. Since then they have rebounded to 2,500 in the early 1980s and more than 6,000 today.
In the background is the propeller of the schooner Cottoneva, a 190-foot steam schooner that ran aground in 1937 and of which only this propeller remains. It may have been of interest to the deer but I’m not able to explain why.
.
.
.
.
American Crow.
OK, it’s called an American Crow but this is really an Australian bird. This is because all corvids originated in Australia and migrated out to the rest of the World except Patagonia and Antarctica, although they went extinct in New Zealand and were re-introduced. So next time you see a corvid you should say “Gidday Mate”.
.
.
.
.
Sisters Rock State Park
This is about twelve kilometres south of Port Orford. The two rocks on land and the one behind in the sea are known as the Sisters Rocks. It reminds me somehow a bit of the Falklands. It reminds my partner of Tasmania.
As Johnny Nash sang: “I can see clearly now … It’s going to be a bright bright sun shiny day”. But as we shall see towards the end of this post, it may not always be like that.
.
.
.
.
Pistol River Scenic Viewpoint
. 
This image and the next few are three-quarters of an hour further south, likely at Pistol River Scenic Viewpoint.
.
.
.
. 
Clearly some huge megaliths from an unknown neolithic civilisation. Just imagine the effort required to erect them.
.
.
.
. 
Self-portrait with sea and rocks.
.
.
.
.
Natural Bridges Viewpoint
. 
We are now a little bit further south, at Natural Bridges Viewpoint.
The right-hand side looks to me like an elephant partially obscured by the left-hand side.
.
.
.
. 
Far below there are tunnels through the rocks and turquoise water.
.
.
.
.
Jebediah Smith Redwoods State Park
. 
We are heading towards Jebediah Smith Redwoods State Park so this is likely to be Smith River. We are now in California.
.
.
.
. 
Looking up at the redwoods.
We would have gone to the Hiouchi Visitors’ Centre and found the information for a very short drive, then a walk over a foot bridge to the short Stout Grove Trail.
.
.
.
. 
Close view of redwood trunks.
.
.
.
. 
Looking up a redwood tree.
A notice board here describes the grove as “the heart of the Jebediah Smith Redwoods State Park“. It was donated in 1929 to save it from logging.
There are three varieties of redwoods and these are coastal redwoods. The tallest current tree in the world is a coastal redwood 116 metres high. They can grow for up to 2,000 years.
.
.
.
. 
Redwood bark.
.
.
.
. 
Redwood trees.
After visiting the redwood grove, we drove a bit further south to Trinidad, where we stayed the night. I had visited Trinidad at the age of ten, an island in the Caribbean. I don’t remember driving across the sea so perhaps that was a different place. It must have been here we had a very nice meal in a local restaurant and I was somewhat surprised that they served New Zealand lamb.
.
.
.
.
Willis
. 
Willis.
This is the next day and we stopped in Willis for lunch. The 2018 Camp Fire that took out Paradise is 100 kilometres east and you can see it in the sky. Had we been on inland Route 5, we would have been very close to it.
.
.
.
.
Life goes on “as normal”.
Wikipedia describes this fire as the deadliest and most destructive in California’s history. The date is November 18. It started on November 9 when an electrical line failed during katabatic winds, and it was not contained until November 25. 85 people died, largely because the roads out of Paradise could only clear a quarter of the population within two hours. A warning about their clearing capacity in 2009 had gone unheeded. 50,000 people were displaced, 18,000 structures were razed and 620 square kilometres (240 square miles) were burnt, causing an estimated $US16.5 billion in damage.
.
.
. 
There have been fires in the Camp Fire location recorded since 1899. California, like Australia, is susceptible to bush fires. However, there were ten significant fires from 1990 to 2014 and thirty significant fires from 2015 to 2026. A 350% increase. There is a significant impact here from climate change. Those people who prioritise personal convenience, deny science and oppose preventative action are extremely foolish as well as highly irresponsible.
.
.
.
.
San Francisco
. 
Is this Brooklyn Bridge? London Bridge maybe?
Two and a half hours later, we are on the north side of the Golden Gate, overlooking Golden Gate Bridge. It is 4pm and would not normally be as hazy as this but the haze is due to the Camp Fire. It must have been hazier the previous day though, when the air quality in San Francisco was described as very unhealthy. Today it is just moderate.
.
.
.
. 
From here we returned to the highway to go across the Golden Gate Bridge and head for the airport. Not far from where I took this image, I drove around a corner and there was a coyote on the slope of the hill just above us, probably about fifteen feet away. I stopped the car and we looked at each other for some seconds until the coyote turned away. The guide books don’t say anything about seeing a coyote just north of the bridge so I had packed the camera away in the back of the car and can’t show you an image. A nice welcome to San Francisco though and a demonstration that wildlife is not always deterred by the presence of humans.
This is the last colour image from the trip. We are still north of the bridge and looking out to sea. Point Bonita Lighthouse is a tiny shape near the end of the peninsula. You can see the huge layer of smoke lying over the horizon.
.
Next will be a technical post and then conversions of Washington and Oregon images to either black and white, monochrome, duotone or multitone.
.
.
.
.