Monday 3rd April – Did we make it back to the Pacific?

Well, it’s 8am and I’m sitting in a plush lounge with free coffee and WiFi so I guess we weren’t just turned away by Cummins.  In fact, they are happy to do the oil change and service and take a look for any issues with the engine.  How much it will cost?  We feel like we’re in the RV equivalent of a Mercedes garage so we’ll wait and see how painful the bill is?!

Our overnight spot at Cummins - see, Harvey really isn't that large compared to some other rigs!

I think that the pain of the bill was more than made up for by the sociable morning that we had.  Everyone we met was so friendly and generous.  Simon and I were making the most of the free WiFi in the customer lounge when we were joined by Ava, a 12-year-old Canadian girl who is a bit of a star when it comes to Free-skiing, by all accounts.  Well, her parents are taking her to the North American championship in California for the last race of the season.  Or they were until their camper started breaking down.  As far as I can make out, free-skiing is basically falling down a snow-covered mountain as rapidly but with as much style and panache as possible! The family are from Drumheller, Alberta and Ava is in the top three of her age group in Canada.  I got her to give me her autograph.  Just in case.  She came in to chat to us and introduce us to their youngest standard poodle, Casey. Then we were joined by her Dad, Lehn, while we were all wishing the morning away waiting for the garage to do their thing with our RVs. In fact, they’ve had so much go wrong with their bus that the whole family had a tour of Harvey after he was finished as they may be interested in buying him after our trip!  Here’s hoping… that would be amazing to have a potential buyer ready.  But even if they don’t want the RV, they not only had lots of great tips for routes to take across Western Canada and campsites to try, but we also now have a potential stop-off point at their house after we have left Calgary.  Lehn’s wife, Monica, was so friendly, basically saying if we get stuck for anything while we’re in Canada, give them a call and they’ll help us out.

The gentleman who we met yesterday afternoon walking his dog turns out to be a retired Naval and commercial pilot called Sam.  He came into the lounge with his wife Sandy and really, we could have just left Simon and Sam to get on with talking about planes all day!  Their two sons are also pilots and when they invited us to come and see them just north of Portland, our brains started going into over-drive, thinking of the possibilities for Simon to get some flight time, which they openly offered.  But sadly, we’re just not going to have time to squeeze that it before Saturday.

Long story short with Harvey – they did a service, oil and filters change and couldn’t find anything to be concerned about that may have caused the troublesome whiff.  No leaks or damaged pipes, but our minds have been eased that someone professional has given the engine the once over. They fixed the connection problem with the bathroom light that we needed resolving, so no more stops needed for that before Wednesday.  Okay, so our pockets are lighter to the tune of a couple of 100 bucks, but we were expecting a higher bill than before and by the sounds of our new friends’ bills, we had gotten away with it lightly!  Plus, we now have two new contacts in North America, so it was time and money well spent.

Our first glimpse back on the Pacific coast of Oregon

So, even though it had been a long morning, we were leaving with the all-clear and it was still only 1230pm.  So, how far would we progress this afternoon?  Within an hour and a half, we were on the 101 coast road north and arrived at Sea Lion Caves.  The sea cave was discovered in 1880 and was in use by the sea lions back then so they are very long-term residents.  These days, access to the cave is somewhat easier since they installed a lift (or elevator if you prefer!) in 1961 to take you down the 215 feet or so. They estimated that there were two hundred sea lions here today but that seemed conservative when experiencing the noise… and smell!

Some of the sealions used the energy from the waves to help them up to this perch

The view from sealion caves towards the Haceta Headlandd

Heceta headland and lighthouse

There are California and Stellar sea lions over-wintering here.  We visited at the right season – when the temperature increases most of them move out onto the rocks outside the mouth of the cave so are less visible.  This is one of the largest sea caves in the world, with a 2 acre floor and 125 feet high domed cavern.  From within the cave there is also a lovely view across to the Heceta headland and lighthouse. Heceta head lighthouse was built in 1894 and is claimed to be the most photographed lighthouse in the world.  Simon had promised me puffins, but it must not have been their time of year as we only saw gulls and cormorants.

We continued up route 101, not sure how far to continue.  Having started as a clear-skied day, the weather was becoming increasingly overcast but with this the rising seas and crashing waves became more dramatic for photo-opportunities:

 


















In the end Simon identified an amazing State Park, called Cape Lookout.  It was roughly an hour away from where we need to reach tomorrow and it was very remote, which we love. A highlight on the way there was when we spotted a bald eagle land in the shallow sea before just clearing the top of the RV with what appeared to be a massive fish in its talons!  We just arrived in time to catch the last of the daylight on the beach by which time it was looking very stark and it was difficult to see far up the coast due to the amount of spray in the air:

We were exhausted from our early morning and the sea air.  So, as soon as the last of the daylight had disappeared we tucked in to left over lasagne from the other night and had a movie night.  Watching Lost Boys again after having been to Santa Cruz was great – we had definitely seen the appropriate parts of the boardwalk.  I kept shouting out ‘we were there!’.  I’m sure it wasn’t too annoying…?