As we continued our drive south on Route 101 we passed beautiful sections of the coast with big rocks, forested areas and epic views. Our next destination was on Cape Arago Hwy outside of Coos Bay. This post is just PACKED full of images/videos because this area is just plain incredible.
We spent 11 nights at Oceanside RV Resort & Campground and enjoyed our stay. It was small, had direct access to a private rocky cove to explore during low tide, plenty of sandy beach and beautiful sunsets. Our spot backed up to lots of greenery. The sites are close to each other (we didn't use the bathroom & did our laundry in town because the washers here smelled funky), but we spent all of our time outside playing so that didn't bother us at all in the evenings. The location was wonderful for the things we wanted to do in the area.
I loved walking the beach near the RV Campground (which runs into Bastendorff Beach) until I reached the jetty where I could sit and watch the various birds. Another cool thing here was the fog horns that are in this area and sounded like an ocean windchime about every 28 seconds. You can hear the one closest to us in this little clip from the jetty.
We spent a lot of time exploring and hiking along the coastline here between Cape Arago State Park and Sunset Bay State Park. So many areas with crashing waves, sea stacks and wildlife. Because this was just down the road from our RV spot it made it really easy to enjoy a section and then come back another time to see something else.
Sunset Bay - Shores Acres State Park
This part offers incredible low tide pools if you climb around from Sunset Bay. It also has great views of the Cape Arago Lighthouse. So many pretty bays and coves to look down on from the trail as well as wildlife to see. We had fun watching the hermit crabs scurrying around in the tide pools and the seals lounging and swimming around.
Shores Acres State Park - These formal gardens, once the grand estate of timber baron Louis J. Simpson, are perched on craggy sandstone cliffs high above the ocean. It's such a spectacular setting to see the landscaped areas with beautiful flowers and then walk over to the cliffs to look out. The trails all along here, as well as Simpson Beach, are wonderful.
Simpson Reef Overlook - "Simpson Reef overlook provides a view of an extensive rocky intertidal area, kelp forest and numerous small rocks and islets. The reef is one of the most outstanding locations on the west coast of the US to observe marine mammals. Five species of pinnipeds use this site as a haul out. Two species (Harbor seals and Northern elephant seals) are known to breed there. It is a major migratory, resting and non-breeding area for California sea lions and Steller (northern) sea lions. " source
It was so cool to hear the noise from all these various animals! Notice the super large elephant seals on the very back of the sandy beach. They are massive and have the strangest faces! It was fun to watch and hear the sea lions. They are the ones with the longer legs and stand/walk around using them rather than galumphing along like the seals do. I thought they looked like large ocean bears as they wrestled/nudged each other.
Simpson Beach to Cape Arago - Just another incredible stretch of coast and some places had easily accessible large flat sandstone/rocky areas we could get out and sit on. We also got to watch the Coast Guard doing some practice maneuvers which was impressive.
Cape Arago South Cove - We came back here a few times to explore and enjoy this really lovely cove especially during low tide where you can really get out on the rocks and see some super cool ocean wildlife.
This part of the Oregon coast is just breathtaking and we LOVED it.
Some great shots!
An enjoyable read as always and wonderful photos, which is also par for the course with your posts Alison😊.