A landscape photographer's tour
Eureka, 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.

It seems the boats I saw yesterday were just visiting Eureka - my free local paper mentions the Hawaiian Chieftain and the Lady Washington (below)

Fans of Pirates of the Caribbean may recognise it...

It's half past seven and the sun is just about shining at the Bayshore Inn, Eureka.

Before long, the sky is clear and I'm heading to the next beach

The low sun catches the waves and spray

This strip is actually about 170 degrees, showing almost the whole beach

It's a crop from the middle of this picture.

Note that the distortions you might expect are not there.

Any straight line that runs through the centre of the frame remains a straight line.

I stopped off at several more places, including Trinidad

a nice beach and small harbour

and here, in black and white

A very pleasant day...

Meanwhile here's a picture of me by the Pacific for my Mum... :-)

I'm about 8 feet in front of the camera

...or a slightly less distorted view

Meanwhile, in the car park, bumper stickers with a car attached

Not fans of the 'commander in chief' I guess :-)

Next, it's off into the land of the redwoods.

This shot is of some of the very large trees in the Redwoods National Park

Being rather thin and tall, they are one of those sights that it's very difficult to capture in a photograph

Here they are in the background to some forest flowers

Enough trees and beaches for the time being.

I stopped off for a coffee and snack in Crescent City

Here's the lighthouse at Crescent City

... and another rocky beach :-)

Anyway I've decided to stay at Crescent City for today. There seems to have been a severe shortage in imagination when they were thinking of the street names for a big chunk of it. A grid of streets, either single letters or numbers. Was there no-one famous to name things after at the time?

Today's Motel coffee is 'Guest Choice' - I think not... :-)

NEXT DAY