WASHINGTON AND OREGON TRIP

We took a pleasant trip down the Washington and Oregon coasts in early October. We drove down to Victoria early one morning and stopped in at an old BU colleague, Gordon McPherson and his wife Billie. He had retired some 18 years ago out of the Music School and had moved immediately to Victoria where they have been ever since. It was good to meet up with them after all this time.

We then continued on taking the Coho ferry to Port Angeles. The "we" included Lucy who has proved to be an enthusiastic and very good traveler. We stayed the night in Port Angeles and next morning went into the Olympic Mountains nearby to visit Hurricane Ridge in the State Park.

Hurricane Ridge

Next stop was Seattle via the Kingston - Edmonds ferry. We visited an old University friend Rae and her husband Steve and spent a pleasant day with them. Steve runs a boat repair yard on Lake Union and he has refurbished a Crisscraft motor launch. This has been a long term project but is is now complete and we went out in the finished product, which really is a work of art . It was marginal weather but we had a great time dashing up and down the lake, maximum speed was 34 knots, which was pretty quick when you are close to the water. There are a number of bridges in the area taking the roads across the lake and one kindly opened for us to let a tall yacht through.

Bridge at Lake Union, Seattle

The ladies traveled in the rear section and enjoyed the spray.

Enjoying the ride

We stayed in Seattle at a pet-friendly hotel. We never had any difficulty finding pet-friendly hotels and motels and the fee was usually quite small. One even provided us with a large dog bone, two towels and a sheet.

Next day we traveled South and West reaching the Washington Coast at Aberdeen. There are many parks along the coast and we manged one or more walks each day

Lighthouse in the National Park at Westport

We stopped the night at Ilwaco near Long Beach. This was the location of the end on the Lewis and Clark Trail. These two gallant gentleman were commissioned by Thomas Jefferson in 1804 to find a route to the Pacific from the Midwest. Travelling by canoe and on foot they found a way through the Rockies to reach the Pacific just north of the mouth of the Columbia River, in what is now Washington State. There was an interpretive centre on the coast celebrating the journey and some pleasant walking trails.

North Head at the end of the Lewis and Clark Trail

Lighthouse at Cape Disappointment

Ilwaco and Long Beach are at the bottom end of a long peninsular. We drove up one side and down the other. Part way back we came across a small fishing port. A boat had just come in with a large load of oysters. Two men were shoveling a large pile into crates to be trucked away.

Oysters being unloaded at Oysterville

Next morning we continued South crossing the mighty Columbia River to enter Oregon stopping for the night at Seaside, a popular resort town. Just south of Seaside is Ecola State Park. We made that a lunch stop and walked out to the coast. Although a fairly prominent cape, there was no lighthouse but there was one out to sea, the Tillamook Lighthouse.

Tillamook Lighthouse from Ecola State Park

On the trail to Indian Beach, Ecola State Park

Indian Beach

Continuing on we enjoyed some magnificent coastal scenery. The tourist is well looked after in Oregon and they were always plenty of pull outs to make it easy to see the views.

The next photograph shows were were all actually there.

We stopped for the night at Tillamook. This town is well known for its cheese factory and we made a visit to see the production hall. Then we visited three capes in succession, Cape Mears, Cape Lookout and Cape Kiwanda. There was a nice walk out to Cape Lookout.

The coast from the viewpoint at Cape Lookout

A little further on we came to a small port where you could catch crab.



We stayed the night at Lincoln City.

Depoe Bay is a small port with a very difficult and narrow entry. We watched a small Zodiac make it through.


Depoe Bay is a whale watching centre. The board in the photograph will interest Don if he can read it, sorry about the small print size.


The main walk of the day was to Yakima Lighthouse.

There were plenty of pelicans to see on the rocky coastline

The lighthouse at Yakima Head

More pelicans enjoying a bath

A lovely beach at Yakima Head.

We stayed the night at Yachats. The motel was the most pet friendly we encountered, the one with the sheet, two towels and the large dog biscuit.

The next morning we stopped at Cape Perpetua State Park where there was stiff climb up to a viewpoint.

Looking back down to the coast at Cape Perpetua



More proof we were really there

We stopped at a small layby nearby and were treated to an amazing sight, a large colony of sea lions on the beach below. They were making quite a din and had attracted a large crowd of enthusiastic watchers.


The dramatic cliff scenery had now given way to a coast line of dunes. We went out to a spot at Winchester Bay where you could get onto the dunes, a region where dune buggies were very evident although they we kept in designated areas so that they didn't tear up the coastal dunes.


We stayed the night the Coos Bay.

We were nearly at our most southerly point on the journey. As we travelled South we came across another colony of seal lions on the rocks.


The weather had been extremely kind to us to that point but the clouds were coming in and the cloud base was getting lower making any further progress down the coast less interesting. We reached Port Orford. The coast at this point didn't allow a normal harbour. However, to overcome this deficiency, they have a novel way of getting the boats in and out. Each boat is equipped with metals arms that can be attached to hooks on the end of strong lines. They then simply lift the boats out of the water onto the concrete.


We turned round at this point and backtracked to Bandon where we had already arranged to stay. On the way back we walked out to the coast at Cape Blanco.

Cape Blanco

We stayed at Bandon in a motel right on the coast.

The coast line outside the Bandon Motel

Out to sea was Face Rock.

We started out journey back home making a stop at the Evergreen Aeronautical Museum in McMinnville. This is a fairly new Museum set up by Evergreen International, a large freight airline. One of its current projects is to carry the prefabricated parts of the new Dreamliners that Boeing is developing at their main plant in Everitt, Seattle. The museum is built around the Spruce Goose, a monstrously large flying boat built by Howard Hughes just after WWII. It flew just once, a requirement to obtain government funding. It never flew again and was for years on display at Long Beach, California, next to the Queen Mary. Evergreen essentially rescued it and after refurbishment it now takes pride of place at the museum. It is indeed large, very large and in pristine condition. We arrived at the museum as it was closing but managed to get in the entrance hall and were able to take a few photos of the plane.



We stayed the night just outside Portland and next day made it home via Seattle, making call into the Boeing plant. There is a museum at Everitt and they run a tour of the plant from there. The tour takes you to three production lines, the new 747-8, the very successful and in service 777 and the new Dreamliner. The first production Dreamliner was at the head of the line, there are already six pre-production aircraft built plus two test structures. Unfortunately for Boeing, just as they were readying the first aircraft for flight last June they decided that there was a major structural weakness where the wings join the fuselage. This has set them back a few months as they decide how to strengthen a rather critical part. The work is nearly complete and they are ramping up production. No photographs are allowed.

We caught the late ferry from Tswassen and were home just before mdnoght.

All in all a great tip.

VACATION IN PORTUGAL: DAY 1

We decided to take a two week vacation in the Algarve region of Southern Portugal. The following pages will hopefully give you an idea of what we did and what we saw.

We left Comox very early and travelled via Vancouver to Toronto. This was a day before we were due to fly from Toronto to Faro as that flight only goes once week and to miss it by trying to do the whole journey in one day was a bit too risky we felt. It also gave us the opportunity to do something interesting while in Toronto.

TORONTO TO THE ALGARVE: DAY 2/3

The flight for Faro left in the early evening giving us most of the day to explore Toronto. We decided to visit the Royal Ontario Museum which recently had a major and controversial addition made to it - the Crystal. This is a unusual glass and steel front added to an old building. There were a couple of special exhibitions on while we were there, one on Diamonds and the other on Wedgwood china. There were the usual regular galleries. We hadn't been here before and enjoyed that visit. It was then time to collect our belongings and head to the airport. We flew with Air Transat, a Canadian airline specializing in vacation traffic. They use Airbus 310 and Airbus 330 aircraft, the former being fairly old but we found the plane in very good condition considering it was 21 years old. In the interest of turning a profit they pack nine seats across in a 3-3-3 configuration which means everybody is a bit squished but the pitch wasn't too bad. The airline reviews aren't particularly complimentary but we found the service quite good and had no complaints. We left the gate at on time but came to a halt on the taxiway as the captain wasn't happy about number 1 engine. He kept everybody well informed for the next two hours as was we made our way back to the gate and various mechanics did their thing until the captain decided he was satisfied, which satisfied everybody else we think. Once airborne we made good time and arrived in Faro a little late but in one piece. As is common on vacation flights there was a round of applause on landing!

We had a package that gave us two weeks in two separate locations in the Algarve and a car for the whole period so the first action was to collect the vehicle, a Citroen C2, quite small but nippy and extremely economical on fuel. Since we weren't due to check into our first accommodation until early afternoon we spent a while looking around Faro.

This is a typical Portuguese town with an old section and a lot of development tailored to the vacation industry. We had our first pastry and coffee enjoying the local scene and a temperature somewhat greater than we had left behind. That augured well.

Faro Harbour

Entrance to Old Faro


The Bell Tower at the Taberna da Se - the Cathedral in Faro

Note the stork on the right hand side

Off to build a new nest


And here is where the stork was going to join his/her mate

In Old Faro

It was time to move on and we drove to the West to our first apartment in Luz. Luz is a smaller town just West of Lagos and about a hour if you take the freeway. We were staying at the Ocean Club Palm Bay and we were given a two bedroom apartment on the third floor. This overlooked the front and gave us a splendid view of the coast. The apartment was very well equipped, everything you might need. It had a good kitchen, a large living and dining room, a bathroom and the two bedrooms.

Ocean Club Palm Bay - our unit was in the back of the complex on the top floor

The view over the coast from the balcony

The kitchen

The living/dining room

ALONG THE CLIFFS FROM LUZ TO BURGAU: DAY 4

We had brought with us a book of walks in the Algarve, some 20 in all and we managed to use 7 of them during the two weeks. The first was along the coast from Luz to the next fishing village to the West - Burgau. The weather at the start of our stay was a bit patchy but we set off in moderately warm temperatures. Leaving Luz we passed a wall with a nautical touch.

This walk was just 9.5 km there and back right along the cliffs.

We reached Burgau and had a good look round. The village had been a busy fishing port but those days seemed to be over. It began to rain a little so we made that an excuse to have coffee and a pastry. However, it cleared enough for us to make the return journey on foot.

TO CAPE ST. VINCENT AND ALJEZUR: DAY 5

The most westerly point in Europe is Cape St. Vincent. The fishing village of Sagres sits nearby. There is an active fishing industry there and we had fish from Sagres during the vacation. Sagres is the site of the Fortaleza where Henry the Navigator established his school in the mid 1700's. The Fortaleza is a large castle on the promontory entered through a rock tunnel. It was really windy that day and sometimes it was hard to stay upright. Just inside was a huge pebble wind compass unearthed in 1921 under a church. Nobody is quite sure when this was constructed.

The Rose Compass at the Fortaleza, Sagres

Out at the Cape is was even more windy!

The Lighthouse at Cape St. Vincent

The coast at the Cape, next stop the Americas

Everywhere we went there were always lovely flowers to enjoy. Here are a few from the region of the Cape.

We then traveled up the West coast where there are a succession of lovely sandy practically empty beaches. The one below is the beach at Bordeira, a popular surfing beach.



We reached the town of Aljezur, which has the remains of a 10th century Moorish a castle to explore up a long winding hill.

View over Aljezur from the castle.

A typical cobbled street in Aljezur