Post PCT - Oregon Coast Trail day 6

[Beverly Beach State Park to Wakonda Beach]

Today wasn't a particularly amazing day. I start to think that it must have something to do with the Newport area, perhaps people hiking here in the past did not leave the best impression. I only spend about half an hour trying to catch a hitchhike as I knew it would be a waste of time and it was. The stream of cars didn't have any interest of stopping or even acknowledging my existence, so I gave up the concept altogether.

Road and beach walking was the name of the game, I reached Newport fairly quickly had breakfast ice-cream and two McDouble's and carried on walking. Going through the massive Yaqina Bay Bridge was the highlight of the day, I really liked it's art deco design and the scale of it. It was hot and sunny all day and I forgot to top up my water before leaving the campsite but luckily there was few little water streams by the beach in the Seal Rock area.

Half way through the day it finally occurred to me that I need to start planning my way back to Los Angeles where I will be flying back to Europe from, it's only 8 days left and I'm nowhere near the area, I'm in a different state (both mentally and physically it seems, haha) so the planning has begun. Tomorrow will be my last full day walking Oregon Coast Trail, the following day I will make my way to Eugene and catch the overnight Amtrak train to San Francisco, it might be possibly my final stop before LA but I'm pondering going for a day to Las Vegas as well. Both of those cities have cheap accomodation and once I'm in California the transportation won't be too expensive as well. I paid so far 5$ for the bus from Florence (where my OTC hike will end) to Eugene, then 155$ for 15 hours overnight train to San Francisco (and it looks like it will be my biggest travel expense, fingers crossed). Two nights in a budget hostel in San Francisco came up to 46$ which is super cheap.

I planned and booked all those things at the bus stop waiting for a 7 miles lift to the town of Yachats which would set me up nicely for the next day. I was waiting for the last bus of the day, after an hour I spotted it coming and lifted my hand to stop it and.. it didn't, driver, a young boy gave me a brief look and just kept on going. Seriously, what was wrong with this area?! I had no choice but to keep on walking and it was getting late.

I managed to pass the next city called Waldport and got down to the beach, there was few excellent grassy sand dunes in the area so I climbed one and found a good spot for the tent just before the sunset. I had a PCT style Knorr pasta side dinner and stood up to take few pictures when I noticed a guy with a doberman coming out of the bushes behind me mumbling something in my direction. He disappeared behind the long grass and emerged shortly after right next to my tent, at this point I noticed he was carrying a rusty machete as well.

He asked what am I doing here, he seemed quite nervous and upset, I said that I just wanted to stay the night and will be gone in the morning, he calmed down a bit and mumbled that he was just checking and that he also camps in the area. He said that he waits for a friend and that he might invite me for a beer later, I thanked him and ensured that I won't be causing any trouble, shortly after he was gone. And I also were gone, it took me about 5 minutes to pack all my gear and get the hell out of there! Talking about gut instinct, my guts were telling me that staying there would cause me a multitude of problems, so I decided to flee.

I kept on walking and searching for somewhere suitable to stay the night, I also wanted to put few miles between myself and the mumbling machete man. Problem was that people living in the area were lighting campfires on the beach behind their houses so I decided to walk until it gets dark and set up somewhere at the last moment. And so I did, there was a guy walking the dog very close to where I was setting up and I thought he will approach me and tell me that's it's illegal (because it is illegal) to camp on the Oregon's beaches. It would be a perfect ending to this cluster fuck of a day, but luckily he just walked away - I'm still half expecting a SWAT style invasion on my campsite though, it was just one of those days, I'm glad it's over.

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