Thursday August 29, South Beach WA

We slept with the rain falling all night, and sadly this morning’s drive was in quite heavy rain, although it did clear for a wee while and I got a few photos of Hobuck Beach before it all closed in again. It was too wet to wander around Neah, it appeared to be a very large commercial fishing port with some quite large boats in port. Retraced our route down to the Olympic Highway, then south…in the rain! We came up this road at the end of our 2010 trip…and it was in the rain as well, feel doomed. Stopped in Forks, the town made famous by the “Twilight” books to refuel and pick up a few supplies that I had forgotten, somehow I am not properly organised yet! The store was a general outfitters and had a huge range of sporting goods, clothing and footwear as well as grocery, and Sherry you will be pleased to know that they still had a lot of summer footwear and I got a really got pair of Keen hiking sandals to add to the collection! We ran back to the van through the rain and the guy in the rental RV parked beside us waved a Silver Fern Flag and called out “Hi Kiwi’s”!!! Such a small world. Gerry and Eileen are from Albany, NZ, had rented their RV in Vancouver and were in the last week of their travels on their way back to Vancouver. We were the first kiwi’s they had seen in all their trip, so we ended up having a long chat.

The rain continued to fall, I wanted to visit the Hoh Rain Forest which was 18 miles off the highway, we drove part way up the road but decided the weather was against us and found a spot for a late lunch although I did manage to get a few photos of the mosses that just hang off the trees. 

I had seen some wonderful photos taken at Ruby Beach, and last trip it was pouring with rain…and this time is was just the same, such a shame.  So we continued down to South Beach where we had spent 2 days last time and just loved. There were quite a few campers already here but we managed to find a spot parking parallel to the shore with a 180 degree view of the Pacific. The rain had eased to showers although quite a wind blowing. We had a very interesting visitor later in the afternoon, Liz had seen the NZ signs on the van and called in to check if we were really Kiwis. Her daughter had married a New Zealander and was living in Tauranga with 4 children. Liz had visited our country a number of times, she is from Arizona, a retired psychologist and at 77 she continues to spend several months of the year traveling in her car and camping in her tent, we were really impressed with what she is doing, and thoroughly enjoyed chatting with her.  Just love how life on the road hands out contacts with the most interesting people.

There is no service at this spot for my Verizon Hotspot so out of contact for a few days.