Wedneday August 31, Riverbend Campground, Chinook, WA

Slept well surprisingly as we were right near the highway. Ian wandered out this morning to chat with some of the guys that were fishing. Two native Americans had been out in a canoe and anchored in the channel, and they came back with two very nice 30lb Chinook Salmon. A couple of the guys on the shore had caught steelheads, a sea run trout and they were well over 10lb, the fish were running. Had a long chat with Jim, a really friendly and happy guy, who was proud of his nice steelhead. He lives not too far away and often comes to the camp when the fish are running.

We continued west along the River stopping at some of the old ports that had been the main method of transport in the early years before the roads were built. Even now logs are barged down from Alaska and come into some of these ports.

The river widened out considerably and in fact the last bridge across to Astoria, Oregon before the ocean is over 4 miles long. This weekend is Labour Day weekend, the last long one of summer and we were well aware of the difficulty of finding a good campsite, especially as we were keen to give Ruakiwi a good clean and to sort things out in readiness for the end of our trip next week. So decided that we would get a place and spend the next 5 nights and have a real clean up …. and a bit of a lazy time!!!! Checked out a few campgrounds along the road but most look pretty rough, then we found a really good one at Chinook, it is right on the river but looking out on the river and is not too crowded. Also there is a laundry on site so will be able to give everything a good wash. They had some spare spaces so we booked it.

It was only midday so decided to continue out and explore the Long Beach Peninsula, a big spit on the ocean. We stopped for some lunch in town….and Terry, I had razor clams as you recommended. Really enjoyed them, great flavour. But Long Beach is just a beachside town with amusement arcades and carnivals and lots of souvenir shops. Also as we found last year it is very hard to even see the coast, there are only a few roads that lead out onto it and most people drive along the beach, it is a public road. So in fact we didn’t even get to really see the Ocean.

On the harbour side though we stopped at the wharf area where there is a big oyster operation, they harvest pacific oysters and in fact create beds for then to grow on with the old oyster shells. Chatted to a few commercial fisherman and they are all complaining about how few days they are allowed to fish…it just seems to get harder and harder.

Before going back to camp we took the van into a carwash and gave her a good clean, ready for a polish over the next few days.