Klamath River Overlook, Wildlife and Jet Boat Tour

May 24th, 2016

We tried to book a tour on Klamath Jet Boat Tours for today but they didn't have enough people and so we got on one tomorrow instead.  We had wanted to go today as the weather was forecast to be better than tomorrow but we will see what happens.  Instead we went to the Klamath Overlook on Requa Road. It was a very short drive from the campground and had fantastic views along the coastline.

This is the sandbar between the Klamath River and the ocean.

                            
                            

There were some low clouds

Looking down at the rocks below.

                            

There was a trail down to a lower overlook which said it was a half mile which we decided to try and do.  We could see it was a steep descent and so would be steep coming back up as well but figured we could do half mile each way, so off we went.

The river in the background

There were a lot of pretty wildflowers.

Going down the path.   Bryan was on the switchback above me, following along.

and down!!!

                            

We discovered that the path was very winding with lots of switchbacks and after going down a fair distance we still couldn't see the end point and we decided we had better head back up.  We do know our limitations!!!

No end in sight still!!!

When we got closer back to the top we sat and had a short rest and admired the view.

We managed to get back to the car park but once there I had to rest as the climb caught up with me and I was very out of breath.  After another short rest, a man sitting at the top told us there were Gray whales below.  We watched for a while and sure enough there they were.

Fluke prints from the whale

We drove down from the overlook to a lower spot on the river where we could see the campground in the distance.

This old house/shack was by the side of the road.  Bryan got out to take a couple of pictures but this was the best he could do as there was a sign saying "Trespassers would be shot"".  Fair enough.

                            

On the opposite side of the road was the historic Requa Inn which is a bed and breakfast now.   We could see this inn from our campsite further along the river.

A gazebo and garden belonging to the Requa Inn, our campground is in the background.

Another great day and we've now seen a bear and whales since we've been here.  No sighting of the bear today though!!!

May 25th, 2016 

Finally, the day we were going on the Klamath River Jet Boat Tours.  We hoped that we would see some wildlife on this tour and were excited.  The reviews on TripAdvisor were good.  I try and look on TripAdvisor for Things to Do in the places we visit and have found some interesting places to see.

I was a little apprehensive as the reviews also said you would get wet!!!  Well, as you know I don't like my face getting wet.  I asked the girl in the office where the best place to sit was to avoid my face getting wet and she said the front seat.  As you can see we didn't get the front seat, oooehhh!!!  It was the gentleman in the fronts birthday though, and I didn't have the heart to ask him if they would swop, so I gritted my teeth and went with it.  I made sure I had a blanket that I could cover my head with if I needed to though. Ha!!Ha!!

Ready to go

Water along the side of the boat

This is where the Klamath River meets the Ocean and what we got pictures of from the oceanside yesterday at the viewpoint.

We got a close up of the seals on the sandbar.  They usually stay on the sheltered river side.

You can see them looking at us in this one  

We went back up river and back past Lily watching us from the bank!!!

This was all that remains of the Old Klamath Bridge that spanned the river but was destroyed in the floods of 1964.                                            

                                                

We saw some Bald Eagles at various parts of the river.  Here's a nest in the top of a tree.

This is a small fishing village where they have camps in the summer.

Mist and clouds in the trees

Can you spot the Bald Eagle in this tree?  He's on the left near the top.

This one is in the middle close to the top!!

This one's the easiest to spot.

This  man lives out here in his tree house.   He had a small boat moored on the river and waved at us. We waved back.

This was where we did our first twirl.  We were told to hold on and the boat spun around a couple of times.  They repeated this a few times getting a bit more daring each time but nothing too bad.  The last time we did get a bit splashed but nothing I couldn't handle.   He did say he wasn't going to get us very wet as it was cold. Here's a very short VIDEO of the first twirl!!

looking back at the guide and the river behind us

It got very overcast and quite cold and apart from the Seals and the Bald Eagles we didn't see any other wildlife so the trip was a bit disappointing to us. We really had been hoping to see more bears. The bear that we saw when we first arrived was actually right opposite their offices and they hadn't seen him.  I don't think they even believed us and we saw the whales yesterday as well, so we weren't overly impressed.  Oh well, you win some, you lose some.   It probably would have been better if the weather had been better.

We got home and had hot chocolate and cappuccino to warm up!!!