Coquille To San Fran

Umpqua highway To Bandon

On packing up in the morning we headed along the Umpqua highway which was loaded with twisties and a neat ride, a quick stop in Roseburg for food and supplies and we hit the road to Bandon, we took a dodgy wee back road called Coos Bay Wagon Road which turned to shingle and a bit of mud and was beautiful with trees, river waterfalls and all, an excellent accidental choice.... no pics tho  

3pm in the afternoon, we arrived a place called Coquille. It was sunny and warm, considering the forecast, we decided to call it quits early so we could take the advantage of the sun and dry the tent out before putting all our gear.

We had a few visitors come and chat to us who were interested in the bikes which was cool.



Were we set up camp was right next to blackberry bushes and they were choca with berries, Ellen and I scoffed ourselves silly ... we looked like a coupla kids in a candy shop.



The berries were perfect and beautifully flavoured, after tea (dinner) we walked into town to get some yoghurt for breaky so we could have blackberries with yoghurt. 

The walk into town and back proved to be a heap of fun and really interesting, we stopped into a second hand shop could have been anywhere in New Zealand.

There is a big mural on a wall too, very well done.



I stopped to pat the horses .... their hair was hard than our horses in New Zealand



On returning to camp we had a visit from Mr.Plod, just checkin us out, once he established who we were he said he would come back and keep an eye out for us, that was really neat. 

In the morning Mr.Plod’s offsider came over and said gidday too, very cool of them to look out for us.

I also spotted two leafs suspended from a strand of spiderman wire ... I would hate to see the big mofo spider that spun it!! 



Magic 



We managed to pack up in the dry but with ominous clouds watching down on us closely, the road to Bandon was a nice back road and mum nature did give a wee shower or two.

We carried on down 101 to Golden Beach where we had lunch at a romantic toilet block, it was miserable and wet, we both layered up one extra as the fog and rain was chilly, our mission was to get down to the drive thru tree which we did.

At that point our day took a huge change when we met up with Craig and Sharon from Oz on a KTM990 Adventure who had travelled throughout all Europe, the Stans, Russia etc so were a wealth of info.





We had a chat and decided to set up camp together which turned out to be very beneficial as the campsite inside the Redwood National Park was $35.00 fookin dollars ...hmmmm.



After trying to get to a closed camp we backtracked five miles where we set up, great chats, food and travel stories were talked, everything cool about adventure travel!!!

Before we all set off the big Redwoods were calling, stunning autumn colours.





And of course another big f#$*^@g tree



The following day we left our own ways knowing we would hold them up, we also knew we would catch them again at the HU meeting in Cambria.

In the morning we set of for the “Avenue Of Giants” (nothing new for Ellen and I cos bein short everything is giant), this was a nice deviation from 101 heading south to 1.

The is "The Immortal Tree" which has withstood floods of epic proportions, monster fires, the human axe and asian eyes  .... note the fish up the tree was the flood line   



We did the touristy thing .... both of us





Highway 1 was recommended and calling our name, the road was tight, twisty and beautiful and comes highly recommended.... no gravel tho.

Camp was beside the sea at a place called Westport and we had about an hour before the sun went down so a walk along the beach was in order... here is a pic of my bum!!!



The beach, first beach side camping we had done on our trip



This is also where we met John and Rebecca, we had passed them twice earlier in the day, twice they pulled over in pullouts to let us past.

Ellen and I saw them at camp setting up so being appreciative motorcyclists we went over and said hey thanks for letting us go past safely earlier .... and it all went from there.

With the ice broken from their good natured driving earlier and our thanks it was easy to make new friends, chats were had around the camp fire (again) Rebecca kindly took care of the smoke which followed her all night ... onya chick!! 

Turns out they live and work on the road in their fifth wheeler and the setup they had was mint.



Later that evening another ADVer pulled into camp, we had a quick chat and offered to halve our camp as we had the only flat bit of grass and with the cost it was sensible to share too. 

Fog rolled in thick and fast and was heavily laden with moisture, our tent in the morning looked like it had been through a rain storm, everything was damp.



Justin (the ADVer) insisted on paying for our camp too to help our budget (we still owe you that coffee Justin....come to Ushuaia to get it), very nice indeed, Justin was also heading to the HU meeting as well via a different route to us.

Heading off with our soggy tent under wraps San Fran was our destination to catch up with Spidey (Warren) and his good lady Chris.

1 was clear further down after riding in pea soup for an hour or so, I keep an eye out for Ellen all the time and she kept appearing then disappearing with differing thicknesses of soup in the air. 

The last part was very windy pushing and shoving us all over the road which made it difficult, you either get no wind and fog or wind and a view ... take you pick of poison. 

San Fran wasn’t too bad to get into with Mrs.Garmin sending us pretty directly with all avoidances disabled, the famous car chase streets providing some great stop start rider training for Ellen and making me keep my mind on the job.

Spideys house is on a step section so I made sure I was parked and ready for Ellen in case her landing didn’t work out, coming from the top down made it easier so no dramas there ... luckily cos we were both tired from fighting the wind earlier. 

San Fran next.