Orcas Island Trip part two
Sep. 17th, 2021 04:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tiggymalvern
Our second morning on Orcas, we wandered around the village of Eastsound (that doesn't take very long) and visited the Orcas Island Historical Museum.
The museum's actually pretty fun, more interesting than I was expecting. They've taken six log cabins built by settlers in the 19th century, moved and rebuilt them in the town, then linked them all together under one roof, so each main room in the museum is one cabin. There are a lot of early settler artefacts, plus some from the indigenous people, and a lot of extra oddities. My favourite was the story of the local school district commissioner, who had to oversee all the different schools in the islands and was given a rowboat to do it with. In the five years he did the job, they estimate he rowed around seven thousand miles, and they had the rather sorry-looking boat there in the museum. It said once he got caught in a storm and it took him three days to make the ten miles between San Juan and Orcas islands....
That afternoon, we drove around the island a bit and investigated the various edges.
North beach. There's nothing much there, just pebbles and gulls and a nice view.
Blanchard beach, a little further along the coast. The rocks look dramatic, but that section's privately owned, so all you can do is admire and leave.
We took the 1.5 mile loop hike around Judd Cove preserve, which takes you past an abandoned quarry and lime kiln.
Judd Cove itself has very little remaining of the old wharf where they used to load the lime onto boats, just one bit of concrete.
Deer Harbor, on an inlet towards the west side of Orcas.
The next day, we were supposed to have an all-day kayaking trip out of Deer Harbor to a small island which is a state park, but the guide was ill so it was cancelled. We transferred onto a morning kayaking tour out of Doe Bay instead. In hindsight, that might have been fortuitous, because the clouds never did clear that day. Instead it started pouring with rain at 2pm and never stopped, which would have made kayaking back from the island less pleasant.
Doe Bay before the rain. The clouds were dramatic, but the sea was still flat and calm for effortless kayaking.
Out on the water in a tandem kayak.
Kayaking past Doe Island. The SO had rather optimistically put his sunhat on.
The rain didn't stop until 9am the next morning, so we spent a quiet afternoon reading at the house, then headed out at 10.30am when the trees had mostly stopped dripping and we hiked the Obstruction Pass loop. There are a lot of trees along the bluffs, so the views over the water weren't as good as I'd hoped.
It was still a lovely walk through early autumn forest though.
By the time we'd eaten lunch at the little cafe in Olga, the clouds were just starting to break up again. Views from the waterfront jetty in Olga.
From Olga, we headed over to hike the loop around Mountain Lake in Moran State Park. Which will kick off the third and final post in the next day or two.
The museum's actually pretty fun, more interesting than I was expecting. They've taken six log cabins built by settlers in the 19th century, moved and rebuilt them in the town, then linked them all together under one roof, so each main room in the museum is one cabin. There are a lot of early settler artefacts, plus some from the indigenous people, and a lot of extra oddities. My favourite was the story of the local school district commissioner, who had to oversee all the different schools in the islands and was given a rowboat to do it with. In the five years he did the job, they estimate he rowed around seven thousand miles, and they had the rather sorry-looking boat there in the museum. It said once he got caught in a storm and it took him three days to make the ten miles between San Juan and Orcas islands....
That afternoon, we drove around the island a bit and investigated the various edges.
North beach. There's nothing much there, just pebbles and gulls and a nice view.
Blanchard beach, a little further along the coast. The rocks look dramatic, but that section's privately owned, so all you can do is admire and leave.
We took the 1.5 mile loop hike around Judd Cove preserve, which takes you past an abandoned quarry and lime kiln.
Judd Cove itself has very little remaining of the old wharf where they used to load the lime onto boats, just one bit of concrete.
Deer Harbor, on an inlet towards the west side of Orcas.
The next day, we were supposed to have an all-day kayaking trip out of Deer Harbor to a small island which is a state park, but the guide was ill so it was cancelled. We transferred onto a morning kayaking tour out of Doe Bay instead. In hindsight, that might have been fortuitous, because the clouds never did clear that day. Instead it started pouring with rain at 2pm and never stopped, which would have made kayaking back from the island less pleasant.
Doe Bay before the rain. The clouds were dramatic, but the sea was still flat and calm for effortless kayaking.
Out on the water in a tandem kayak.
Kayaking past Doe Island. The SO had rather optimistically put his sunhat on.
The rain didn't stop until 9am the next morning, so we spent a quiet afternoon reading at the house, then headed out at 10.30am when the trees had mostly stopped dripping and we hiked the Obstruction Pass loop. There are a lot of trees along the bluffs, so the views over the water weren't as good as I'd hoped.
It was still a lovely walk through early autumn forest though.
By the time we'd eaten lunch at the little cafe in Olga, the clouds were just starting to break up again. Views from the waterfront jetty in Olga.
From Olga, we headed over to hike the loop around Mountain Lake in Moran State Park. Which will kick off the third and final post in the next day or two.
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Date: 2021-09-21 04:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-09-21 08:20 pm (UTC)