Crossing the bridge over the Columbia river from Oregon to Washington State I headed to Cape Disappointment State Park to camp for the night.

Cape Disappointment Lighthouse

Cape Disappointment was named by an English fur trader, John Meares in 1788 when he was looking for the mouth of the Columbia river and failed to find it. He would have realised how close he was if only Garmin (or was it the US military?) had invented the GPS a bit earlier.

Benson Beach, Cape Disappointment

Lewis and Clark, the American explorers who were first to cross the continent in a 4000 mile canoe, horse and foot journey got their first glimpse of the Pacific at Wiakiki Beach on Cape Disappointment in 1805.

Waikiki Beach Where Lewis And Clark First Saw The Pacific

The tent was wet when I packed up from Cape Disappointment. I had intended to take a couple of loops on quiet small roads off Hwy 101 but as it was raining I headed straight for Olympic National Park. The weather improved later as I travelled north to Quinault where it was sunny and I was able to dry the tent by draping it over the bike in the visitor centre car park. I had lunch by Lake Quinault and explored the village while the tent was drying.

Lake Quinault

The Lake Quinault Lodge built in 1926 represented how the other half live to me. The grounds were nice and free to walk round though.

Quinault Lodge Gardens

Once everything was packed away on the bike I took a dirt road along the south side of the Quinault river, over a bridge and back along the north side of the river.

Crossing The Quinault River With Snow Capped Mountain On The Horizon

I didn’t do as much exploring in Olympic National Park as I would have liked but they don’t call it temperate rain forest for nothing. Temperate rain forests are rare and only found in Washington State, New Zealand and Southern Chile.

Washington State Beach

Crescent Lake, Olympic National Park

I Rode to Port Angeles without making any of the planned detours as it was cold, grey and overcast with some drizzle. Instead of staying in Port Angeles I opted to get the ferry straight to Victoria on Vancouver Island. Arriving at the port I found that a ferry was leaving in 15 minutes. There were no US customs or immigration to deal with so I had plenty of time to get aboard. A couple of miles offshore and the sun appeared.

Canada Bound, A Country With Proper Money With The Queen's Face On It

Last summer I had some fruit confiscated by US Customs as I crossed from Canada into the USA. As I hadn’t planned on crossing the border when I did I was carrying more fruit so spent the ninety minute ferry crossing eating as much of it as I could. Obviously on entering Canada the only things I was asked about were guns and ammunition and I didn‘t have any of those.

Port Angeles From The Ferry Leaving The USA