Day 10: Devil’s Punch Bowl and Whalen Island, Oregon.

Our stay at Beachside State Park lasted only a couple of days as we will need to move on today. We had a few pieces of wood and instead of carrying it around, which you are not suppose to, we had a little morning fire before we left.

As some of you might know, we always have bacon in the fridge. I have been known to keep the bacon fat in a bowl or cup after draining it from the pan. It comes in really handy to get a fire going and it also makes the campsite smelling like a breakfast joint.

We still have not yet unhitched after 10 days of traveling. Since we didn’t drive anywhere in these 2 days, pulling up stakes and heading out was easy.

By looking at the maps, we knew that there were a few places we wanted to see while in this area. The trouble is that overnight parking is still scarce so we will once again need to find a campground by the end of the day. There is one Walmart along the coast at Newport, Oregon just a few miles from Beachside with no overnight parking. We are going to have to make sure we get to our, currently unknown, destination before it gets dark and hope to have a site to camp in.

First stop just up the coast is a cool place called Devil’s Punch Bowl State Park. There is no camping around here but it is a pretty popular surf spot.

The coastal haze is still lingering but it sort of added to the charm of this place.

This is Devil’s Punch Bowl. When the seas are rough, it churns and swirls violently and can splash sea water well above the bowl opening. It is thought to have been created when the top of 2 sea caves collapsed as it carved its way to the middle from both sides.

As we got out of there, we continued meandering up the coast in search of the campground. We veered off of the Interstate in an attempt to drive along the coast and found our way through Pacific City. Just to the north of it, we found a nice county park on Whalen Island with a handful of campsites. There is barely any phone connection but since it is now nearing the weekend, we should be ok to be disconnected.

There is no shower facilities here but there is a dump station and bathrooms. While we were waiting to dump our tanks, this girl from Canada decided it was a good idea to wash her hair and brush her teeth here. I was speechless. I am assuming she knows what goes on here.

Whalen Island County Park turned out to be quite a little gem along the coast. There were several sites here open in the middle of summer and surprisingly the sun even came out.

There are no hookups at our site but we have pretty great views of the water. But that’s okay. We love boondocking and are prepared with lots of essentials that will make our stay very comfortable and is sustainable for our family’s camping needs.

There were several tenters here as well as a handful of RVs. The site we were assigned was very spacious with a fire pit and picnic table.

Strewn all across the Oregon coast are giant pieces of driftwood. As long as there are no critters living inside, the kids look at them as playgrounds.

Glad we didn’t have to wear our winter jackets here today.

Whalen Island sits just inside a small bay from the Pacific coast and by the looks of it, the marine layer is still nice and thick just on the other side.

We are pretty content just sitting here hiding in the tall grass.

Inside a tree stump.

Or in the hollowed out trunk.

Maybe the driftwood isn’t just a playground for kids. Grownups are welcome too.

We are happy to have found a great spot for the night. This is exactly the reason why we don’t like to obligate ourselves to making reservations. It might be tough at times to find a spot in the busy season but it lets us find places like Whalen Island.

We are almost all the way through the Oregon coast. Tomorrow we will continue to explore.

over and out,
dan