There's always time for Cheese and Wine

Thankfully once again there was zero trouble in picking up our car (though I must once again refer to a pair of fuckwits in front of me. By god people take a long time to get their heads around the concept that they are to pay if they want to take extra, pushed by the company, insurance packages).
The guy though upgraded us and we now have a brand new, only 4000 on the clock Ford Explorer. Heated seats, heated steering wheel, spare driver if you need it (not really!) you know.. the works!

Once I had got back to the hotel to pick Dan and our luggage off we were off. Nice easy journey out of Portland and as we really wanted to do as much of this trip to the coast, on the coast, we needed to go via Tillamook I declared! (A place I already knew didn't have much to offer other than Cheese and
Wine Place heeheehee).
Dan agreed it was a fine idea given the coastal path we could pick up - as well as some particularly
lovely scenic spots.  En route he noticed in the book we have that Tillamook has a big Cheese and Wine place.... hee hee my clever little plan has worked!

Pulled into Blue Heron French Cheese Company and not only does it do what it says on the tin, they have a petting zoo there?!  And 3 beautiful peacocks and a couple of peahens.  I did not know though that you could actually get white peacocks until the moment I walked in there and saw it in all its glory.  Stunning.
The shop itself was fab (though, aside from the people working there, we were the youngest there by a county mile!). Once we finally worked out what we were doing we got our wine taster set sorted  - the wine waiters girlfriend lives in Ormskirk.. - we tootled to get our cheese tasters and I was a very happy girl :-)

We bought some cheeses, wines, beer and mustard and set back off.  And no, we are not thinking we will bring them home. Our stay at the Lighthouse provides a full, shared kitchen and you are encouraged to bring your own as there is nothing walkable around... so we are!
Pushed on from there back onto our chosen scenic route - again ignoring the Sat Nav and going where we thought best. I know that's hardly wild to most people but we feel like we're being a little more unplanned at least.

We had a little stop at Cape Lookout - it was really grey and misty here but the beach and the sea still looked stunning. Yeah, we all love to see it in the sun but its still glorious in all weather to me.. it has a more powerful impact I think when it's looking like a storm could arrive any minute.
We then came to Cape Kiwanda which is a really pretty little beach town with a lovely beach and another of the Haystacks proudly jutting up through the sea and rain mist.

This looks to be a bit of a popular place for surfing and there were people in and/or on the beach with a fire. Looked ace. But cold. Food and beers for us inside thank you (Pelican Brewing Company conveniently had a lovely large pub right there on the beach)

After a late lunch we meandered on again and finally reached Depoe Bay and our fabulous hotel Inn at Arch Rock. This is set on the cliff overlooking the sea. Every room bar one has an ocean view.

It's really lovely and the owners are awesome!  They are totally easy going - you just get on and enjoy and use whatever they have to offer to do so. Films, BBQ, Firewood, kitchen....
Our room is really nice and I can LITERALLY see & hear the ocean from our bed.

We chilled in the room for a while and then headed around the corner to a well recommended restaurant called Tidal Raves. It was a pretty rainy evening so not one for going wandering around to see the bay really.
Restaurant/bar was lovely and we had a really delicious meal. Fresh seafood all the way on this menu and cooked beautifully. We had a table overlooking the ocean too.  Chatting to the barman, he recommended a couple of towns to stay when we go to Crater Lake.. he mentioned one of the places we had been considering so that was great. At some point we'll actually look at booking it (that will be for Friday night. We still have nothing lined up for Sat, Sun or Mon as yet....)
It closes fairly early (by our standards) so we headed back and cracked open one of the bottles of wine we had bought on our trip that day...