A landscape photographer's tour
Florence, OR to Pacific City, OR

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.

There are other photo travel diaries covering trips to:
Washington and Oregon in Fall 2007 and Colorado in Spring 2006 and Fall 2008

Daily pages 19th April: UK to San Francisco 20th April: San Francisco to Jenner, CA 21st April: Jenner, CA to Fort Bragg, CA 22nd April: Fort Bragg, CA to Eureka, CA 23rd April; Eureka, CA to Crescent City, CA 24th April: Crescent City, CA to Bandon, OR 25th April: Bandon, OR to Florence, OR 26th April: Florence, OR 27th April: Florence, OR to Pacific City, OR 28th April: Cape Kiwanda, OR 29th April: Pacific City, OR to Cannon Beach,OR 30th April: Cannon Beach, OR to Shasta, CA 1st May: Shasta, CA to Lakeport, CA 2nd May: Lakeport, CA to San Francisco 3rd May: San Francisco to UK

What's the Californian weather like? What's the Oregon weather like?

National Weather Service radar (Pacific Northwest) What are the roads like? (CA)

Why not create your own customised A3 size wall calendar from some of Keith Cooper's photographs. Choose your own images for your own custom printed calendar - 12 months starting any month of the year. Choose from nearly a hundred images - many not yet in our main gallery.

I'm staying in Cape Kiwanda for a couple of days, and having a bit of a rest from driving on Saturday

I left Florence fairly early (my getting up time drifts later during these trips ;-)

After a few miles I stopped at Neptune beach

The rocks here are mostly volcanics, and here's a dyke (an intrusive near vertical sheet of magma), with quarter for scale (arrowed). Who said I never learnt anything on Geology field trips to Scotland ;-)

Anyway, here are a couple of more scenic views

And the bridge on the main road

Here's the first big bridge of the day

More impressive is the one heading in to Newport

Newport is a major fishing port - you can see the bridge in the background of this shot of part of the harbour

While I was watching, this seal (or is it a sea-lion?) came up and decided it didn't much like one of the seagulls on the water :-) Do they eat sea-birds? It certainly got all the gulls to move...

Time for breakfast at 'the coffee house'

Here are some fellow diners sampling the huge pancakes...

While I went for the very interesting (and tasty) Crabcakes florentine - the sauce is a mustard and tarragon white sauce

Another nice spot to view the waves

and time for coffee and a quick check of my email :-)

The headland below has the Yaquina lighthouse - not having the interest in lighthouse that they seem to have round here, I decided not to stump up the $5 to visit it.

here's a better view from the car park...

Here's the view looking up the coast. The weather was gradually clouding over all day.

I'd decided to stay at Cape Kiwanda for a while, and went a bit further up the coast while waiting for my room to be ready.

This is the view of Haystack rock from the north. I've stayed here before and got some excellent sunset shots (pics in the main gallery)

I also had a walk in the forest above Lookout Point

In the full size picture, the waves can be seen several hundred feet below

More big tall trees

...but some nice flowers as well

Meanwhile back at Cape Kiwanda, it looked as if there wasn't going to be a good sunset that evening, so here's just a few shots of the last sun.

Then I went off to the Pelican Pub and Brewery, which is why this update is a bit late :-)

NEXT DAY

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