Highway 101 from Arcata, CA to Newport, OR

a bit like a travelogue but here goes anyway..

A couple of years ago we flew to Melbourne, hired a little van and travelled the Great Ocean Road in Southern Victoria. We had a ball - a bit like when we were young doing road trips in an old panel van - we just stopped whenever we felt like it and generally soaked up the beautiful scenery including the Twelve Apostles – a group of rock formations just off the coast . It was great!!

But Highway 101 is greater!! The road is excellent even for the RV. It runs right by the rugged coastline, alongside mountains that seem to only stop when they reach the ocean.  Forests of old growth conifers and redwoods line the horizon to the east and the ocean spews forth huge sea stacks jutting out of the water like soldiers guarding the coast to the west – and it goes for hundreds of miles. We would just get past one awesome sight, drive around a headland and ‘there you go, there’s another one’ all the way up the coast.

Sea Stacks

The drive is peppered with little villages and seaside townships – each one unique in its own way.

One of the first places we stopped at was Trinidad. It is so cute with a little lighthouse at the top of the main street and all the houses built to make the best of the weather and views. There is a lovely walk down to a beautiful, protected cove, sheltered by the headlands and offshore rocks.

We stayed just up the road at Patrick’s Point where there is a massive sea stack sitting on the very edge of the North American Tectonic Plate.  It’s called the Wedding Rock and about 50 couples get married out there every year.

Tsunami sign

The tectonic plates are located right along the shoreline at Patricks Point so we took a walk , 250 steps down and 250 steps up,  to tidal pools just to say we had been there. A bit of exercise and it sure lifted the heart rate.  This is an amazing coastline with scientific studies / information stations on every headland. It put us on notice as we cruised further up the coast we saw sign  posts saying  “You are entering a Tsunami Danger area.” These are erected all along the coast wherever it was low lying or any river flats or estuaries, followed by “You are leaving tsunami danger area” along with escape routes signposted. They all take it very seriously and most campgrounds we stayed at near the water had ‘tsunami evacuation plans’ – yes, you guessed it – head to high ground fast!!

Redwood Forest

After a couple of days at Patricks Point, we headed to the Redwood National Park. We couldn’t get all the way into Fern Canyon as the RV wasn’t allowed on the unsealed narrow road but we still got to drive through the National Park and take a couple of walks We were ‘kind of’ reminded of home – all the mossy dead trees and ferns, tall trees and our rainforests. Get out there guys and have another look – don’t take it all for granted – we live in an amazing world.

The National Parks people are very good at educating visitors about God’s handiwork and the continuing life cycles of the forest floor. 


Everything has a purpose – living or dead.

The weather all the way along the coast was fine, with cool breezes and fog every morning til well into the day. There was a very wintery feel to this part of our trip.

Brookings, Oregon was no different. The sun eventually came out at 3.00pm in the afternoon and stayed around til about 9.30pm at night. 
We had great visits / chats with people in the RV park here and saw our first deer in the meadow.

Somewhere along this section we stopped at a very distinctive tourist centre - Trees of Mystery and there was Paul Bunyan and Babe, his Blue Ox. This guy is about 15 metres tall and is very entertaining.

Little children were climbing over his shoes and, as he is interactive, he started chatting to them. Every question those kids asked was answered. It is the most clever tourist attraction I’ve ever seen and it’s FREE.

 I can’t ever imagine kids letting dad drive past and not say ‘hi’ to Paul the timber getter. Google it, it’s fun

We also made a stop at the Sea Lion Caves to see America’s biggest sea cave. It’s 125 feet high and covers two acres

To get to the cave we had to take a ride in a 200 ft elevator and there they were – lots and lots of Steller sea lions and California sea lions and their cubs. I tried to take photos but it was too dark inside the cave.

At the camp fire - Eel Lake

We took out time getting further up the coast and stopped over for couple of nights at Eel Lake, Oregon. We met a lovely lady  - Terri who lives, most of time, in the forest in her tent with her dog. She has a great philosophy for life, a mountain of friends and little worldly goods – happy and content with what she’s got.

I so love what we are learning from the people we meet. I read this on the back of a bus seat in Portland – Capture Life’s Unpredictability. 

There’s a message there! We can get too caught up in the predictable and miss precious moments in time.

Anyway, back on the road to Florence (I could live there – it is sooo cute, colourful, quaint, cultural, artsy and good coffee) and then on to Newport for three days to catch up on the washing, etc before going into Portland.

Our neighbours (Dennis and Mary) at Sasquite Bay RV Park in Newport invited us to visit and over fruit salad, ice-cream and green tea we spent hours solving the world’s problems (in theory, that is). They have an interesting lifestyle as many do on the Oregon coast. They live in the park for the summer and drive their RV down south to Arizona for the winter - Mary makes beautiful jewellery using natural stones and rocks (yes – I now have a piece) and Dennis creates amazing tie-dye shirts, scarves, etc that they sell at local markets. They tie a marble into every piece they make as their trademark – it forms a little circle and as Mary says, “What goes around, comes around.” More words of wisdom!!

We had trouble with the hot water heater at Newport and found a local ‘mobile’ repairman living in the park who could fix it. Lee is ‘retired’ but probably works harder than most . His services are in high demand as things often go wrong in an RV. He has three RV’s himself - one in Newport, one in Utah and one to get him from one place to the other. Many, many people move south for the winter – it gets very cold here.

In saying that, the summer is very temperate and visitors flock to the cute little beach, the great surf and the lovely old town wharf area – very popular.

From Newport, we headed to Portland for the Waterfront Blues Festival and that’s another story.

They build good bridges over here!

cute little lighthouse

Birds nesting at the Sea Lion Caves

Foggy morning, actually lunchtime!!