Beach! Lotsa Beach. 308 miles, Florence to Port Orford (Days 17-22)

The best way to describe the last four days is …. beach. Almost all beach walking (with a little highway thrown in for spice and a few climbs). We left Florence on July 5 (we could see the Florence fireworks from our hotel room).

How far we’ve come… Astoria to Port Orford.

And we are now more than 300 miles on the OCT. A brief note about mileage. The OCT is not like other trails where mileage is well documented. Things are a little loose on the OCT so mileage estimates are just that, estimates.

Seals! On the beach. We saw this several times in this stretch

And we have been keeping the pattern of accommodations. This stretch was campground, motel, campground, motel, campground, motel.

And we had another ferry crossing – across the Umpqua River.

Someone’s happy! Riding across the Umpqua River.

Another holy rock. What is the deal with these?

To avoid some serious highway walking we took the guide’s advice and cabbed around Coos Bay, stopping for breakfast in North Bend for breakfast.

Mom’s Cafe! Hi Mom!

Five Mile point at low tide – our first obstacle on day 20.

Cleaning the feet after a water crossing.

Leaving Bandon on a dreary morning – rain, rain, rain.

And the character of the sand has changed as we moved south. It is coarser and much tougher walking and the beach has gotten steeper.

We ran into a nice wildlife research lady (Mary) – the only person we saw all day, who told us about another trail to the campground that avoided about a mile of beach slogging. She is part of the Snowy Plover conservation effort.