Since the weather forecast was looking good, for the coast that was, we decided to pay another, more thorough visit, to some of the coastal towns and campgrounds we merely drove by the last time we went there.
From Newberg it takes us about an hour to get to Otis Junction and the cut-off for Lincoln city to the south and Tillamook towards the North.
Another 20 minutes or so to the North brings us to Pacific City and more specifically Kiwanda Beach, where we wanted to check out a few campgrounds.

But first, there was coffee! Heaven forbid, we'd skip it .. it wouldn't be pretty ..

We parked at Pacific city's Tillamook boat launch, where we had a great view of  the  Nestucca River ..

          .. and the entrance to the Bay Trail in the Bob Straub State Park ..

That Yellow Bush or Coast Lupine is growing wild here everywhere, it's a species native to the western United States in California and Oregon.

 

With coffee taken care off (and a blueberry muffin to go with it) we drove the 1.3 miles to Kiwanda Beach and parked the car right at the ocean.
There's something to be said for visiting the coast off-season and on a Monday, it was so nice and quiet!

    

    

This beach is well known for being one of only two beaches on the west coast where one can see fishing dories launch and and land.
Dory fishing is a 100-year tradition where fishermen (“dorymen”) launch flat-bottomed boats (dories) directly from the beach to fish the expansive waters off Cape Kiwanda.

                                                        

Reason being; there’s no boat ramp, no docks and no marina. The beach is the port ..

                

Funny enough, we'd just watched an episode on a local TV station about a group of students from Linfield College who made a documentary about this way of fishing and trying to preserve this unique history, even building a dory themselves:

Kiwanda Beach is a tiny, tiny town and the (three!) campgrounds we wanted to check out for future stays are only one block from the beach.
Which is basically all there is to the town ..
Only one park looked promising, the Cape Kiwanda RV Park (https://www.capekiwandarvresort.com/), it's also the oldest with a lot of (shade-giving!) beautiful pine trees scattered all over the grounds.

I stole this picture from their website to show how close you are to the beach.
Of course I've not been able to find their monthly rates yet but I'm afraid they will be up there ..! Nevertheless, this park went on our list of contenders.

OK, moving on, to the next campground on our list, Netarts Bay Garden RV Resorts (http://www.netartsbay.com/) in Netarts (well, actually in Tillamook, but let's not be anal).
This park is not on the ocean but on Netarts Bay, right 'behind' the ocean, like this ..

                   

The first spaces have a bay-view, and the others are just steps away ..

This is another view from the campground, towards the bay ..

On a sandy island in that bay lives a colony of seals ..

Who you can see a lot better when you have a good zoom on your camera ..

I'm not sure about this one, there's a road between the park and the bay and there's no beach area to walk on, but for now this campground went on our list as well.
We actually do know the rates of this park, which are plus or minus $1000/month. Not cheap, but not as bad as others along the coast!

Next up was the picturesque small town of Oceanside, only 2.5 miles to the North.
We'd driven up to this town before but never got out of the car since it was a warm summer day, packed with people and not a parking spot left.
This time around we had no such problems and after parking the car right in front of the Blue Agate Cafe next to the beach, we went in for a bite to eat.

                                               

And boy, were we glad we did! That clam chowder was the best I've ever eaten (and I've eaten my share!) and the crab and shrimp melt on sourdough was equally delicious!
I don't know why my camera didn't pick up on the ocean view behind James but it didn't. Just use your imagination .. ocean view! Like this:

Looking back to town from the beach you can see the town owes most of it's picturesque-ness to being build on a steep hill-side ..

The house at the top of the cliff in the picture below is for sale, but judging by the erosion of the hillside in front of it, it might not be your safest buy ..

We went for a walk on the beach to the south ... the weather was just perfect, sunny but not hot, with a light sea-breeze.

                                           We passed some bathing Seagulls ..

               

And a Bald Eagle, being attacked by a very angry crow that wanted him away from his territory and, most likely, his nest and youngsters ..

                                                   

Before we knew it we found ourselves all the way over at the little town of Netarts proper and climbed the stairs up the dunes and into town, where we explored the two (!) grocery stores and a quirky little gift shop/shack.

  

                                 Guess who snatched a brownie .. (starts with a J.. ends with ..ames)

It's not much of a town, but it certainly has a beautiful view:

There was one more spot we wanted to check out that day which was the town of Garibaldi for which we had to drive to and through Tillamook (6 miles) and another 10 miles further to the north.
It has 3 campgrounds as well, all of them clustered together at the town's harbor.
There's the Port Of Garibaldi RV Park, the Old Mill RV Resort and the Harborview Inn & RV Park. Here's an areal view:

The reason I wanted to have a look is because the campgrounds situated at the harbor sound very quaint and pretty on paper, but I'd read about that brown spot there on the right of the picture which happens to be  .. a saw-mill.
More precise, I read about the noise said mill makes!
But of course, after all that, when we arrived the mill was not working that day so now we still don't know if it's as bad as some people say ...
Oh well .. it actually doesn't matter after all because we weren't that charmed by the parks either, so I think we're going to rule them out anyway.

On the way back home we checked out one more campground just north of Cape Kiwanda .. I know, enough already ..
This huge park turned out to be a membership park (Thousand Trails) and besides busy and packed close together, it was expensive and allows for only a limited period of stay at a time. So .. 'another one bites the dust'.



By the time we came back through the town of Kiwanda Beach again we were ready for a drink and something to eat, so we stopped at the Pelican Brewery Company.
It's a popular place and even on a Monday afternoon there was a little wait to get in.



We'd hoped to sit outside but the wait for that was rather long so we ended up inside.
At least we had a view of the ocean .. (which once again my camera doesn't show ).



The beer was good and the food (a smoked tri-tip flatbread) excellent. A fitting end to a beautiful day at the beach.
I think we'll be back soon!

And although this wasn't the only thing that happened this week, I think this post is long enough as it is, so I'll cover the rest next time.
                                                               The end (for now)