A landscape photographer's tour
Fort Bragg, CA to Crescent City, CA

Keith's travels in California and the Pacific Northwest - April-May 2007

This photo-diary covers a driving trip up the coast from San Francisco in April/May 2007 along the Pacific highway. Now I've returned, I've included some of my travel photography from this trip in the main Gallery, and updated any info that may be of help to people who come across these pages as part of their planning for driving tours of the California and Oregon coasts, looking for places to stay or sites to visit. It's a great place for a vacation, or just a road trip up the Pacific coast to photograph some of the scenery. If you've any questions about the hotels/inns/motels where I stayed, then please do feel free to drop me a line.

One nice thing about travelling west from home, is that I suddenly find it easy to get up at 6am (8hrs behind UK here)

At the motel I'm at, there's no free breakfast, but there is a coffee machine in my room. Only slight problem is the coffee.

Often called "Roaster's Choice", one is left wondering just what life threatening choice the Roaster was facing at the time they produced it?

Fortunately, I just buy a bag of coffee and some filter papers when I get here...

Oh, and a tray of strawberrys that happened to fall into my basket when I was shopping last night --not seen, bag of choc chip cookies and carton of fruit juice (and a bag of carrots for 'healthy' snacks ;-)

Once again, the little Sony point 'n' click produces a tolerable image (OK, after applying a PS adjustment curve)

The weather looks grey and overcast, but it's not raining!

Time (07:00) to hit the road...

Ready to leave the Mariah Country Inn, Ft. Bragg

It had rained a lot overnight, and shortly after I took the shot below, it started again...

Nice rolling surf

A bit further up the coast the sun came out

This first shot shows some details of the surf

Pulling back a bit

and with the 15mm (note again how keeping the horizon along the midline hides a lot of the distortion.

Still some low cloud in the hills...

and some more rain

One thing I forgot to mention yesterday was the number of cars parked along the coast road, with people in diving gear. It's abalone hunting/harvesting/wanton destruction season (depending on your POV) Each person is currently allowed 4 per day (24 total). It's supposed to be non-commercial, but I bet a fair few end up in restaurants in San Francisco ;-)

Here's where they were going...

A bit more cloud and black and white - the weather looks a bit more threatning :-)

After a while the road leaves the coast and heads into the trees.

The road climbs quite a distance into the coastal mountains.

Further on you reach the area where the redwoods grow...

The one below is called the Chandelier Tree - in the first shot it just looks a big tree

A very wide shot shows it more in context

It's 315 feet high and about 2400 years old, so what do they do - why, cut a hole through it to drive your car through

Meanwhile, this is the view from inside the tree...

They're all over the place, not as old, but just as tall

Highway 101 heads north, with lots more places to see big trees

Eventually I decided to stop off in Eureka

More of the older parts of town

Meanwhile a couple of boats were sailing by - don't know what this was about...

Of course it could be something connected with 'Earthday', which is a bit bigger over here (particularly this being California ;-)

I see on the Earthday web site (I had to look it up...) there is a campaign to get rid of incandescant light bulbs. Not in parts of my house I spend much time in thank you - not until I can get energy saving bulbs with a decent CRI (colour rendition index) that can be dimmed, and don't take 30 seconds to reach full brightness if they are more than a few months old.

As you can see, the weather had improved somewhat.

This is the view from the beach the other side of where the boats were...

Tomorrow it's further north...

NEXT DAY