Friday five: amazing Orcas Island.

Orcas Island is one of those places that Pacific Northwest people gush about. I mean, seriously gush. Don't get me wrong, I hear that all of the San Juan Islands are nice, but there's something about Orcas that makes people actually gush.

So naturally, when I saw the housesit ad last summer I immediately pounced. We exchanged a few friendly, funny emails with the host, and a few days later she made us the offer. (I may have squealed when I read her email. I may have also done a brief happy dance.)

From that point, whenever we'd mention to people that we'd be on Orcas for a month in February, their eyes would pop and huge grins would appear on their faces. (See? Gush.) We wouldn't be there for whale migrations, and we wouldn't have expendable budgets for eating out or whatever else people with jobs do when they visit Orcas - dolphin tours? sailing? - but we knew this would still be something special.

It was even more special that this would be our last housesit for the foreseeable future. And because we were watching three pretty self-sufficient cats and our host was very generous in letting us stay a few days before and after her trip, we had plenty of time to explore the island.

Here are our top five recommendations whether you have a weekend or an entire season to explore this beautiful part of the world...

1. Take a hike. Moran State Park offers 38 miles of beautiful trails, several waterfalls, many lakes, and hundreds of ginormous mossy trees. Trails are flat, steep, windy, long, short - there's something for everyone.

Cascade Falls

how could I not?

Cold Springs trail

As the story goes, the land for Moran State Park was donated to Washington State in 1921 by former Seattle mayor and shipbuilder Robert Moran. In the early 1900s, at age 47 Moran was mentally and physically exhausted, and his doctors thought he would die of heart disease. Moran sold his business and chose Orcas Island as the place to live the last few months of his life... where he recovered and lived to the ripe old age of 86. A fine lesson for us all, eh?

Cavern Falls

 

 Mountain Lake loop

Daily passes are $10 so we invested in the $30 annual Washington State Park pass, and we definitely got our money's worth just from our visits to Moran State Park. I'm pretty sure we hiked almost all 38 miles and there's only a small stretch of steep trail underneath power lines that we wouldn't recommend (only because it's tediously boring compared to the other 37 park miles, but mountain bikers should totally check it out!).

And although Turtleback Mountain Preserve is much smaller, its 8 miles of hikes are truly stunning.

we can see Canada!

(or maybe the Olympics - it's easy to get turned around up there)

the most perfectly placed bench we've seen in three years

Turtleback's small parking areas, more remote location, and limit on group size (15 or more requires an advanced call to the Land Bank) all mean you’re far less likely to run into hordes of people on your hike, like you might in Moran. An added bonus for hikers is that bikes are only allowed on even calendar days, and horses on odd calendar days. These restrictions enhance your hiking experience while helping to preserve the land for future generations. And? It's free!

2. Grab a flight. No, not to another island - which you can easily do (if you're one of those people with jobs who visits Orcas). We're talking about an Island Hoppin' Brewery flight.

best partnered with a rainy day 

and a map to plan our upcoming road trip

Unique brews, lively atmosphere, friendly staff, board games at the tables for entertainment. (And yes, by the end of the flight we'd figured out our road trip plan. Managers, take note - beer gets stuff done.)

3. Eat local. There are lots of organic farms on the island and a Saturday farmer's market May-September, but we also recommend picking up some organic produce and grass-fed/free-range meats from Coffelt Farm. This particular farm was sold to the San Juan County Land Bank in 2011 and the nonprofit that now manages the farm works very hard to "demonstrate sustainable, island-scale agricultural practices, promote environmental stewardship, and provide opportunities for education and research, while honoring Orcas Island’s rural heritage" (direct quote from their mission statement). It's a really interesting model for modern agriculture.

The farm hosts events throughout the year as part of its educational component. During our stay on the island, we joined a free farm tour so that we could see the spring babies up close and personal...

four days old 

thirty minutes old

how now, baby brown cow

Coffelt Farm's market stand is open year-round, Tuesday-Saturday from 1-5pm. Products vary by season and availability, but they always have something good on hand. Tell Charly we said hi when you stop by!

4. Birdwatch. We're not birders by any means - the best identification we are routinely capable of is "LBB!" ("little brown bird!"); we'd rather enjoy coffee in our PJs than hit the trails at the crack of dawn to see a "lifer"; and our binoculars stink. But we do love birds, and over 100 species exist on Orcas Island.  

 pileated (aka "Woody") woodpecker

blue heron #1

blue heron #2

(they look so different with their necks stretched out)

plover (I think)

Supposedly there are puffins. We saw no puffins, but we did see bald and golden eagles, falcons, hawks, cormorants, ducks, and a hundred billion elusive American robins. And a few LBBs.

5. Enjoy the view. There will be days when the skies open up and the wind howls, and you just want to sit somewhere with a beer and watch Mother Nature unfold. There will be other days when the skies are so blue and the cove is so calm, and you just want to sit somewhere with a beer and ponder why all the driftwood on the beach doesn't wash away with the gentle but persistent tide.

Either way, the White Horse Pub offers draft pints at happy hour prices 3-6pm. We went a few times during our stay and were pleased to find that Island Hoppin' and Portland's own HUB were on their tap (as well as your usual mainstream beers).

$3 view

Can't vouch for the food there, but who cares? Do you see that view?

Speaking of food, things are a bit pricey on the island so we didn't eat out but we did enjoy a coffee and pastry from Brown Bear Baking (yum). We also gave tofu waffles a try (needs more experimentation but I love the concept), I discovered Alton Brown's waffle recipe (highly recommend!), and Patrick tried his hand at baking bread (he's a natural, my work here is done).

So yes, our last housesit for the foreseeable future could not have been more perfect.

Well, that's not completely true - the Orcas Island plan didn't really include east coast family emergencies, but as the wise Mike Tyson once said, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." Such is life. Patrick got several weeks of solo time during my mouth punch, which was good for him, and I got a beautiful retreat after an especially crappy start to 2016, which was good for me.

And we got to hang out in a lovely house (and sometimes, also a tiny house!) with three ridiculously sweet cats.

shy Ziggy

not-so-shy Oscar

fat Felix in his favorite pose

More photos of all of this here. We're definitely going out on a high note with this housesit...

Time for one last road trip as we round down this phase of our little three-year-and-counting adventure. Camping along the cold, rainy Pacific Northwest coast in February with the least amount of gear we've ever carried - what could possibly go wrong?

One splurge per continent: Australia's Rail Explorer Pass.

We really wanted to relocate a camper from Perth to Adelaide (did you know this is a thing? you can relocate campers and RVs for just a few dollars a day plus the cost of gas? check it out!).

However. Every time we mentioned this idea, people stared at us in horror. "Are you sure that's a good idea?" "It's the most boring drive in the world!" "All you see is green, then brown, then green, then brown, then lots more brown!" "I don't care if you loved driving across the plains and prairies of Canada - this is no drive across the plains and prairies of Canada!" "Umm...have you seen Wolf Creek?"

Granted, the outback is vast and parched, particularly on this stretch of road, and petrol stations and supermarkets are few and far between. If anything went wrong we'd be without mobile phones and would likely be stranded for hours. Oh, and there was that pesky detail about Patrick's drivers license expiring last June...

So we ditched the relo idea and splurged on the Rail Explorer Pass from Great Southern Rail. For just $495 each, we got unlimited travel on The Ghan, Indian Pacific and The Overland for two months - perfect for our timeframe and the places we wanted to visit. Trains only run once or twice a week and two of the three legs take about three days, but we were in no hurry so that was cool. The pass is only valid for the "Red Service" seats, not the sleeper cars, but that was cool too. After 18 months on the road we were used to sleeping in all sorts of conditions. Nothing could be worse than the overnight bus trip from Sapa to Hanoi.

Best of all? This particular pass is only available to foreigners. Purchasing individual tickets for each leg would've cost us almost $3000! Even airline flights would've cost more than the pass, and we would've had to plan much farther in advance if we'd traveled by plane. Sorry, Australian friends, but for once the tourist tax worked in our favor.

Perth to Adelaide

Adelaide to Darwin and back

Adelaide to Melbourne

The Red Service car was fairly comfortable. The car has a few showers and the train staff provide towels, which was a nice perk. We brought our own food and purchased hot water for our instant coffee and tea from the cafe (we weren't supposed to bring our own alcohol - um, riiiiiiiiiight).

homemade breakfast in the cafe

best train snack ever:

cookies with banana, peanut butter and honey from Darwin

no outside alcohol... riiiiiiight

Whenever we passed anything historic or photo-worthy, the train manager would make an announcement and give us a little background on what we were seeing. Sometimes they even had audio programs that gave a lot more context.

the Iron Man Monument marks the one-millionth concrete

rail that replaced the old wooden rails in 1980

the Finke River, wide and usually dry,

thought to be one of the oldest rivers in the world

and the award for the most unimaginative town name goes to...

We also made a few stops along the various routes.

Cook, Australia: population 4

(seriously)

Alice Springs: lest we forget

Katherine: not much going on

Of course, the best part was just watching the scenery. We saw parts of Australia that most Australians will never see. And yes, the ride from Perth to Adelaide is brown-green-brownnnnnn... but it was absolutely gorgeous, possibly our favorite leg of the trains. We also witnessed some stunning lightning storms on the way to Darwin. Photos can't possibly do the landscape justice but here are a few glimpses...

sunset, day one

on the way to Darwin: not Uluru

but definitely awesome big sky

on the way to Darwin: brown green brown

(and a little blue)

close to Darwin

farmlands outside of Melbourne

Every so often the train stopped for several hours and optional tours were available (for a price). The side trip to Katherine Gorge was the only one that was remotely appealing, but because of our timing the river was low and we'd only get about an hour there so we just didn't think it would be worth the extra cost. We also didn't stay over in Alice Springs and head out to Uluru. After all, we had to save some things for next time!

The final numbers:

• $495 for the ticket
• 9447 km traveled
• 152 hours on the train over about 7 days

hour 1

hour 80

hour 152 - we survived!

• 3 train lines traveled
• 33 crossword puzzles completed
• 2 books finished (but at least 5 were started before we got distracted by scenery)

recommended reading

• 4 bottles of wine consumed

can't bring your own alcohol?

riiiiiiiight

A few down sides to the Red Service:

• The seats recline quite far, but the armrests don't move so you can't really curl up and get comfortable. There are also no footrests. Sitting in these seats was fine, but sleeping wasn't the most comfortable. (Still not worse than the Sapa-Hanoi overnight bus though!)
• On one train we were allowed to eat our own food in the cafe during off-hours or just sit in there for a change of scenery; on the other trains we were asked to eat at our seats to save the cafe seats for patrons. That was fine, we got it - but on these trains we also weren't allowed to sit in the cafe when no one else was there. The red seats were alright for a few hours at a time but having alternate seating options over 48 hours would have been really nice.
• We also weren't supposed to go into the other cars. Apparently "Red Service" patrons aren't worthy enough to mingle with the "Gold" and "Platinum Service" patrons. Hmmmph. Between this rule and the "don't sit in the cafe unless you're buying from the cafe" rule, this meant no escape from the annoying 20-somethings in our car on Darwin-Adelaide leg. Sigh.

Despite those minor issues, we highly recommend this method of travel if you plan to visit Australia for an extended period of time. Please leave a comment or email us directly if you have any specific questions - we would love to share any additional details or suggestions with you. And if you have done one or more of these train trips, leave a comment and let us know about your experience!

Getting into, and getting out of, Nong Khiaw.

Nong Khiaw is totally worth a side trip from Luang Prabang! We highly recommend parking for at least a few days and soaking it in. Getting there from LPB is easy; getting out is slightly more adventurous, especially during low season.

If you're not planning on going anywhere near Lao in the near future, the above paragraph is really all you need to read. (You might want to skim down to see the pictures of us wearing the same clothes for three days, but otherwise...)

If you are planning to go to Lao, and specifically Nong Khiaw, and you plan to continue on to Thailand, here's what we did in May/June 2014.

Getting In
You used to have two options from LPB - minibus (4 hrs, prices vary) or slow boat (8 hrs, 110,000 kip). Unfortunately, the slow boat is on temporary hiatus due to dam construction on the Nam Ou. We were bummed since this is supposed to be a great boat ride.

Minibuses run every day. We booked ours through our guesthouse; it cost 65,000 kip including pickup from the guesthouse. Prices from tour agents along the main strip started at 70,000 kip so shop around! (You can also just buy a ticket at the bus station for 50,000 kip but you still have to get there... It's a long walk in the hot sun and we thought the extra 15,000 each was worth not having to haggle with a tuk-tuk driver.)

Our minibus had no AC but there were only 8 other passengers and barely any cargo so it was perfectly comfortable. The driver didn't cover the baggage on top very well so everything got a little wet when it started raining - no big deal to us, but mind this and/or use a rain cover if you're concerned about your bag. The road is fine until it's TOTALLY NOT FINE (ohhhh that's where all the really bad roads in Lao start!), but we got there in about 3 hours. So overall, no complaints!

Getting Out
Sometimes there are five daily buses to LPB from Nong Khiaw; on that Sunday in early June there were two (11am and 1:30pm) and the one at 11am wasn't even a bus, it was a sawngthaew. (This is relevant in a minute.)

But we weren't going back to LPB. From Nong Khiaw we decided to head to Huay Xai via Oudomxai-Pak Beng. Sometimes there is a direct bus to Oudomxai from Nong Khiaw at 11am; if not you just catch the first LPB bus and hop off at Pak Mong to catch your Oudomxai bus there. If you're lucky they drop you at the bus station (and a bus exists), if you're not so lucky you just wait at the juncture and wave a bus down.

So. We got to the Nong Khiaw bus station at 9:15am not really knowing what time anything was happening. There was no direct bus that day (maybe for the season?) so for 25,000 kip each we ended up on the first LPB bus - AKA the aforementioned sawngthaew - which took us the hour to Pak Mong and the rest of the passengers and cargo two more hours to LPB (for about 45,000 kip). Not the most comfortable ride for us, surely the others were hurting by the end of their trip. But, "Lao taxi" - check!

We got dropped off right at the Pak Mong bus station at noon and the very helpful bus station guy told us that the Oudomxai bus would arrive at 2:30pm. (Lao translation: we'd be lucky if it got there by 4pm.) He drove off in his tuk-tuk leaving us to wonder if he knew what he was talking about. (Maybe we should interrupt the card game taking place in one of the minibuses to ask the other bus station guy? Naaaah. We'll just wait.) The benches were hard as rocks and it was another 100• day, but the station was large and clean with a WC and lots of snacks available. And there was Thai kickboxing on the TV! Now how much would you pay?

At 3:15pm the bus arrived and we were on our way... until road construction stopped us dead for about an hour. We finally arrived in Oudomxai at 6:30pm. (From what we saw, it had lots of energy and a great restaurant whose name I can't read on my iThing photo but it's on the right of the main strip just past the neon bank. They only offer three dishes, all are inexpensive, and our food was really great.)

our dated-but-otherwise-just-fine hotel

across from the bus station

the really great dinner whose picture

doesn't do it justice

birthday breakfast in Oudomxia

From Oudomxai, there are two morning buses to Pak Beng (8am and 10:30am, 40,000 kip). We caught the 8am crammed full of locals and cargo.

couldn't get a steady shot of the villages we passed -

we found the terrible roads in Lao!

Four miserably hot and bumpy hours later we arrived in Pak Beng where we had to take a tuk-tuk into town (10,000 kip each).

the first guesthouse up the ramp from the boat dock -

it worked out just fine

tomorrow this would be our ride

but first, a riverside view birthday lunch at Sabaidee Sivilay

and a meh birthday dinner at Hasan Indian Restaurant

The next morning we caught the slow boat to Huay Xai at 8am (actual departure 8:30am, 110,000 kip each).

but first - breakfast!

(available at any of the twelve pastry shops by the boat ramp)

we're on a boat!

(and we're wearing the same clothes as yesterday!

and possibly the day before that!)

Yep, nine hours on the scenic mighty Mekong...

hour three

hour five

hour seven

(didn't realize until after I took the shot

that there were farmers working on that steep brown hill)

The time went pretty quickly, actually. There were snacks and drinks on the boat if one so desired. There was a nice bathroom. We arrived in Huay Xai around 6pm and walked about 10 minutes to guesthouse row. Easy peasey.

The final "getting out" count: three days, 220,000 kip each plus hotel and food in Oudomxai and Pak Beng (about 200,000 kip each), so about $53 each. Comparing this to a three-day bus tour from Nong Khiaw-Luang Prabang and then from Luang Prabang-Liang Namtha-Huay Xai (and any hotel/food costs), we may have spent just a bit more. But nine hours on the Mekong instead of ANY more hours on those Lao roads was totally worth the nominal extra cost, and who else can say they've been to Oudomxai?

sabaydee guesthouse terrace (the only reason to stay there, really) -

a toast to our last night in Lao

Hopefully this is helpful to someone, someday. If you have a different experience please leave a comment, thanks!