South Coast Weekend ~ Part 1

The last couple of days of summer found me and my hubby at the South coast of Oregon. Just came back from an overnight trip there. It’s been awhile since we have hit the South coast. It’s always been to the north. Not sure why. Oregon coast, from Brookings at the very Southern tip to Astoria at the very Northern tip, is just plain gorgeous. Little coastal towns dot Highway 101 and each of them has its own character and charm.  And lots of lighthouses, too.

The destination town for this trip was Gold Beach. It’s just north of Brookings. To get there meant hitting other coastal towns like Reesport, Coos Bay, Charleston, Bandon, Port Orford, to name a few. Since we only had a day and a half to kill, we decided to stop at Old Bandon for part of the day and spend overnight at Gold Beach, before heading back north and do a last stop at Old Florence.  

Bandon is the cranberry capital of Oregon. We just missed the cranberry festival by a week. Oh well! Bandon is also known for a golf course overlooking the ocean. We feasted on clam chowder, crab cakes at the Bandon Fish Market and Chowder House. One cannot leave Bandon with a bag or two of sweet dried cranberries from Cranberry Sweets & More store. 

Bandon’s ocean view map is just plain awesome. There are rock formations scattered along the Bandon Beach area. Legend has it that one of the rocks called Face Rock was about an Indian tribe Chief and his daughter/princess from the mountains who came to visit a tribe that lived closed to the ocean. There was a huge feast in their honor. After the feast, the princess took her favorite pets, a dog, a cat and its kittens in a basket; left the basket by the shore and proceeded to swim the ocean. A sea creature grabbed her. Her faithful dog, sensing danger, carried the basket with the cat and kittens in it and swam towards her. Upon reaching the creature, the dog bit it so hard that the monster kicked the dog and threw the basket far to sea. The princess, avoiding looking at the monster whose power was in its eyes, looked skyward instead. Her dog, cat and kittens waiting for her to get up, were scattered nearby. The monster sits next to her waiting for her to look at it. I just love legends!

Here are my attempts to capture these rock formations with my measly camera. I didn’t do justice to the Face Rock.

           

 Then it was off to Port Orford. Port Orford also has rock formations along its beaches. The more famous one is the Battle Rock. With a gorgeous day as it was, accompanied by low tide, I coaxed my husband to climb that little rock.

           

It wasn’t that easy, since up where there’s that tree was quite vertical with no foot hold. But we did it. It was fun with a bit of a workout that’s just rightfully needed when we had been driving for hours.

         

More of coast trip posting coming up!