NORTH BANK ROAD TO BANDON

March 10, 2008



Made a trip around the area looking for any additional homes that may fit our needs, but no luck.
We got the brilliant idea, or I should say Helen had the idea of taking the North Bank Road towards Bandon. Really pretty drive, however did not see anything for sale that would interest us.

Both Helen, I thought there was a spur road that crossed the Coquille River and joins up with Hwy 42S. It did not, although I could see Hwy 42S across the river. We had to almost go into Bandon in order to get across the river to tie into Hwy 42S.

It was still an eventful trip and found the area another fisherman told me about where the river makes a large curve and splits into an overflow area. This is where, when the Salmon are running the fish will hold up and rest since its a pretty calm portion of the river. Also we found Rocky Point, which is another great spot for fishing. Nice free public boat ramp.

Since we were in Bandon we thought it may be interesting to head to the Outlet where the Coquille River ties into the Pacific Ocean. We went out to the Jetty area to see how large the waves were and indeed there was a storm brewing. Even though it was raining we ran into a young couple that was heading out to the Jetty to fish for rock fish. Now this is hard core fishing, even for me. We stayed for a short period of time, but really enjoyed the view even though it was raining.

At that time I had the brilliant idea if he weather was nice tomorrow we should come back and do some fishing here. On the way back we saw a lot of bushes that had bright yellow flowers on them. At first we thought maybe it was Scotch Broom, but it was not.

Gorse (Ulex europacus)

This plant is clarified as a primary Noxious weed. In 1936 - Bandon Fire, Much of the town of Bandon, Oregon was destroyed. The extent and destructiveness of fire is attributed to a non-native shrub called gorse. There was a total of 13 firefighters killed during this fire.

Helen agreed to purchasing her fishing license for the year, since we were going to be coming back in the summer for another two months or so.

We came back the 42S hwy, which is only about 19 miles to Coquille. Was hoping we would see some elk, but know luck. There is an area just East of Riverton that has elk that cross the hwy periodically on there way to get water from the river. Riverton is a small community ,but well kept up.