Huntley Park Along Rogue River

At Huntley Park, Gold Beach Oregon

Traveled over to Gold Beach and then up the Rogue River 7 miles to Huntley Park.  Huntley Park is under the authority of the Port of Gold Beach, and managed by Shawn and his wife Patti.  This is our third year being here, and they too raised their prices to $95 per week ($15 per day). We found a nice tree for shade during the afternoon, it is right across from the bathrooms which you can see in the background, and they have showers which cost $2.

We are facing the river this year, normally we have backed in.  You can see our solar panels out in the sun, and what is that in the window?

Oh it’s Bubba, and you can see Marcia in the background too.

Well, I think Bubba was just checking out the river view…or maybe he was wondering if he was ever going to be able to go outside again…

It was an easy driver over to Gold Beach.  Stopped at the Rest Area across from Harris Beach State Park north of Brookings to dump our tanks, and about 40 minutes later we were pulling into Gold Beach.  Down in Brookings the ocean view was null with ocean fog blocking out everything.  About 4 miles out of Gold Beach, it cleared up and we got a few ocean views.

I took a drive up to Lobster Creek National Forest Campground…$15 per night here too, but it is small, only 2 or 3 sites for small RVs and a number of tenting areas.  They do not allow you to camp on the river itself.

You can drive down to the river, and I drove part of the way down to get a picture of the Lobster Creek Bridge look upstream, and…

…here is a view looking down river from the the same vantage point.

But the views from up on the bridge (first looking down river) are the best, and in the bottom picture you can see the shadow of the bridge across the water.  In the top picture you can see Lobster Creek flowing into the Rogue River, hence the name of the area.

  

 

When I got back to the campground, I saw a number of Osprey flying high above the area.  One of them perhaps the one above, landed in the tree just on the other side of the HHR.

 

This closer view shows it up in the tree, and luckily for me, it stayed up there for a number of minutes.

Yep, I think we are going to like our third year at Huntley…sure starting off nice.

Lobster Creek – Rogue River

At Huntley Park, Gold Beach, OR

Last year when we were in the area we traveled in the motorhome up river from Gold Beach along Jerry Flat Road up to Lobster Creek…along the way we found Huntley Park, and less than a week later we pulled into Huntley and stayed for two weeks  Wednesday evening I decided to head the 2.5 miles up to Lobster Creek to see if I could see any wildlife…and with the sun already over the hills, I saw this amazing view above…

Saw just a handful of people, most shown in this picture above..so note the boat launching ramp…that is located in the Lobster Creek Campground, a National Forest Campground which has perhaps a dozen sites…many of which are for tents.  When we drove through last year we found  a couple of sites we would have fit into…but no Internet or Cell reception at all…not good for us.

   

The picture to the left is the eastern view from the bridge, and the picture to the right is the one-lane bridge at Lobster Creek, said creek flows into the Rogue River here.  The campground does not require the use of the one-lane bridge as it is accessed from Jerry Flat Road.

,Above you can see the total amount of wildlife which I saw while I was at Lobster Creek.  And yes, that is Lobster Creek running into the river.

   

Along the roadway are these violet flowers…not sure what they are, but they are pretty.

   

   

I promised pics of Huntley Park.  We are under this tree which gives us morning sun, then cool shade during the day.  The solar panel picks up the sun behind us all day long…just need to adjust the position a few times each day,  Three nights and we have recharged our batteries each day so far.

Found an Osprey Nest yesterday…and got this shot near dusk.  Going to try and get a pic of it fishing…wish me luck!

As I write this post I am sitting outside the Curry Public Library in Gold Beach.  Yesterday I came here and found the Internet to be very good, much like Brookings except no password needed.  They might leave it on all night, so even on Sunday you could probably get it out in the parking lot close to the building.  They are in the midst of an expansion of the building…adding about 40% more space.  It sure looks nice.  Yesterday I came to download some movies.  My Kindle had about 4 gigs of space being used by phantom music which I had removed…but the missing data was still taking up space.  One option is to reset, which wipes everything off of it.  It did do that, but would not let me download movies…but it would download TV shows.  I went back and researched at the motorhome, ended up calling Amazon and talking to a tech for about 45 minutes.  He asked if he could call me back today, and I told him I was going back to the library in case it needs another reset.  At 10:30 last night I tried my Kindle again and it was working.  I have already downloaded  a dozen movies, the maximum you are allowed, and some country music, Blake (Shelton) and Brad (Paisley), and nearly done with blog…might be headed back before he calls back…

Jerry’s Flat Scenic Route

Gold Beach, Oregon

As I was doing laundry on Tuesday I noticed a “scenic route” map near the office and laundry area which I rapidly became familiar with.  We need to find a place to stay after this campground to help fill the gap before we go back to Alfred Loeb State Park down in Brookings.  I want to get to Loeb around the 23rd, so that we can stay there for two weeks, which takes us through Labor Day. 

About six miles up Jerry’s Flat is a county camp ground called Huntley Park.  What I did not know was if there was an adequate Internet connection at Huntley Park for us.  So today we took the scenic route up Jerry’s Flat Road to visit Huntley Park, and then continue along the scenic route over Lobster Creek Bridge and back down to Gold Beach on the other side of the Rogue River.

    

The four pictures above of the Rogue River were taken during our drive today.  The Rogue River is a beautiful river in the is area…lots of water right now, room for more water during times of high rains, and just some wonderful views when you can find the views through the dense brush and forest along the route.  Enough views that it is worth the 20 mile drive.  We did it in our motorhome, and had no problems, although there are two one lane bridges, and about a half of mile of no divider line showing both lanes.

Here is the route we took today, although we did go into Gold Beach to check out a few things…including the free dump station at the Gold Beach Public Works Department on 5th street.  When we stay at Huntley Park, there is no dump station…so we will need to drive to Gold Beach 4 days into our stay to empty our tanks.

We drove through Huntley Park and saw about 6 or 7 empty spots, and all the spots can easily fit our motorhome.  Took a picture of their information board…and it will cost us $77 for a week.  There are no hookups, but there is plenty of sun, so I think we can keep our batteries charges with small amount of generator time…or engine time if we feel the noise would bother others.  The park is 6 miles inland, so the temps will be cool.

Lobster Creek National Forest Campground is just 2 1/2 miles up Jerry’s Flat road, and was right on our path…so we pulled in.  The website I looked at said there were 7 camping spots, 3 or 4 for small RVs.  Well, we saw 2 site, besides the camp host site, which could fill the bill.  But the biggest thing was that Internet really was bad…1 bar 3G and it came in and out (without booster or antenna.)  One bar of 3G, compared to 2-3 bars of 3G at Huntley’s, or 1 bar of 4G at Huntley’s…easy choice.  Lobster Creek would only cost us $4 per day…but without Internet, it just won’t do.  There are other NF campgrounds up the river…but they won’t have Internet either, so we just crossed the single lane bridge going over the Rogue River and started our way back.

This area of the Rogue River is ‘ripe’ for boat tours, and there seems to be a few different outfits in Gold Beach who fill the bill for those who wish to cram into a boat and head up river for 15-25 miles.

It is also a paradise for  the canoe and kayak enthusiast.  This couple looked like they were really enjoying their outing.

      

Of course, this time of year the big thing is fishing.  Picture upper left I took on my walk the other day…picture right shows the boats out at the river where it meets the Pacific.  (If you click on the picture you will see there are many more boats out there closer to the Pacific).  The Salmon are just starting to run… in a few weeks they are having their annual Fishing Derby sponsored by the the Curry Sport Fishing and the Gold Beach Rotary Clubs.

We also were able to get a good picture of the Gold Beach Bridge, one of the numerous Conde McCullough bridges which are along US 101 in Oregon.  We first learned about McCullough back in 2012, and we enjoy seeing his bridges along the coast.  Back in 2013 we took a picture similar to this one above.  Many of his bridges have interesting Gothic spires.

We have really enjoyed our stay here at Indian Creek RV Park in Gold Beach.  We have four more nights, and then on Monday we will try and get into Huntley Park.  There are a few options if that fails, but I think we will be able to get into the park after the weekend.  I cannot see a time limit at Huntley Park, but I am sure you can stay at least a week because they have a weekly rate.