Real "Camping" is where you can't get cell phone reception at all, and where "crypto-currency" is replaced by "cryo-currency" fishing through ice floes. Forty thousand years of Ice Age camping experience can't be wrong. It got us to where we are today, well, if you don't mind being picked off prematurely by a cave bear or saber-toothed cat. But stay in the city, and you get taken out even sooner if you drive past a street gang melee. So might as well enjoy some scenery instead.
For me a good camping trip isn't so much about what you take camping as much as it is what you leave behind at home or work.
"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White
Australia is a great place to go camping! I've gotten so bored of going on camping trips in the US that I can't hear about it anymore. I have been camping from a very young age because it's one of my dad's greatest hobbies, so, inevitably, it became my favorite thing to do as well. Taking into consideration that I have been camping for over twenty years about 30 times a year, you can realize that I have been to all of the good camping sites in the US. However, I was amazed by how great Australia is for camping. I met some guys from a few hotels near me, and they told me all about the best spots, such as Coffs Harbour or Millaa Millaa.
Last edited by kiaramichigan; 14-Jul-2022 at 10:35.
Yep. Right here on the West Coast we have the same ocean as Australia. It's just a swim away. We even have marsupials here. I caught a baby possum a few days ago; and my wife took it to the County wildlife shelter. They're easy to raise and release; but we already have too many pets.
California . . . blah, blah, blah.
I have to put a word in for the Oregon west coast. It's beautiful this time of year, from Bandon in the sourth, up to Astoria at the northern tip. Lots of beautiful, photogenic beaches, widespread dunes at Florence, very neat coastal towns with classic harbors and classic boats, etc. Light houses along the way. Old, concrete, artillery forts at the northern end make for excellent photographic compositions.
Unlike California when I lived there, Oregon beaches are open. They can't be roped off as private property. (Maybe that's changed in Ca?) There are campgrounds all the way up the coast. In Oregon, the beauty is spread out, and not concentrated in just a few, well-known areas. So, I have a hunch camp grounds might be more available.
One can sure see and photograph a lot during a week's travel up the Oregon coast.
Having lived in California for a few years, I can agree there are also many beautiful places to photograph. But, the possibilities in Oregon shouldn't be overlooked. (Except along Oregon coastal cliffs, gazing out into the beautiful, serene Pacific Ocean, with nary an oil rig in view.)
One cautionary note, plan your vacation outside of wildfire season. Smoke filled skies can ruin a photographic vacation. They can be really bad in the northern half of California. They can also affect the southern portion of Oregon.
Don't lecture me about Oregon, Neil. I spent summers with my Grandmother in old growth forest along the coast at a time when there were far less people on the beaches than now. Her father pioneered the Tillamook area after the Civil War ended (minus an arm due to a cannon ball); then her second husband, my father's stepfather, engineered much of the cheese factory. My mother's side pioneered part of the Willamette Valley; and until I recently deeded it over to a nephew, I owned the oldest cemetery in Oregon. My great-grandmother was the first woman to climb Mt Hood, although certain others had equal claim because they climbed it together. My Grandpa had a summer cottage at Seal Beach and was quite an agate collector. But ya sure can't blame Calif for your own forest fires; and they haven't all been all in the south of Oregon. Certain parts of Oregon have some of the worst logging practices in the country, and that bears at least part of the blame. Artificial monocultures don't fare well in droughts.
But yeah, I read ya. I'd probably be heading up that way right now, and even further to the North Cascades, if the price of gas wasn't so insane. Matter of fact, I have an intricate foliage 8x10 from the Columbia Gorge in one of my color enlargers right now. And I'm about to look for another 8x10 color shot I haven't printed yet, taken up along Hummingbird Ridge above the Hood River Valley, though not as far up as the glacier that poor fellow fell on last week when his ice axe broke. My wife grew up in Portland, and an uncle of mine was Mayor of Beaverton for a long time, but retired in Banks for sake of farming, though he kept 500 acres in Tillamook as well.
So I guess I have just as much Oregon DNA in me as anyone. My father got horrible eyestrain headaches from that Portland overcast, so moved to the Sierras. I have the same issue, so am a lot more comfortable with our soft veiling coastal fog here on the CA coast than in Portland. My nephew plans to move to their house in Bend below the ski resort once their younger son starts college next year; but they plan to keep a house in Portland too. I like the more desolate desert areas of Eastern Oregon. Bend itself is just too touristy these days. That dry volcanic soil gives me nosebleeds anyway. It's not so bad up on the hill where it's lusher.
Last edited by Drew Wiley; 9-Jul-2022 at 16:12.
Does Western South Dakota count? Go to Sylvan Lake, it's very nice. Further east is rolling prairie .. can't be nicer than that...
Wow Drew, my Great Grandfather bought property from Senator Maxwell just south of Maxwell Point - maybe 15 acres, about in 1890. They were not the early settlers that your family was though. They would travel to the coast down the Wilson River Road by carriage along with other families and camp along the way. Each family would come to their turnoff and go their separate way. In the 1889-1894 period they lived in Oregon City - later Forest Grove. My grandfather and his two brothers went to some school in Tillamook - I have a photograph that my great grandfather took of their class. He was active in the summers at the beach and his business name was Netart's Photo, or his name Elisee Meresse. He worked with whole plate glass negatives - although I did see one print of his a contact albumen prints of the Adams sisters in Garabaldi (at the Museum in Tillamook) that was 8x10 inches. He also worked with sterreo images.
Wilson River? I remember that. The family property was on the Kilchis River, and its dense old growth forest escaped the infamous Tillamook Burn on the 1920's. The salmon were so dense one could almost walk across the river on them. Lots of steelhead and smaller bluebelly trout too. Put a line in with a caddis fly larva on it, and pull it right back out with a trout on it every single time. No fishing pole needed, just a bit of line on a willow stick.
You might have seen the Captain Gray mural in the Tillamook post office. My aunt did that under WPA auspices, along with many others all over the county. The Portland Museum has one of her famous oil paintings, which was purchased by the Tate Museum in London, but never shipped due to German U-boat activity at the time, so ended up there instead. My Great uncle would take me flounder fishing near Netarts, with zero other people on the beach. Another uncle bought property between town and the cheese factory to build a museum dedicated to my aunt, along with my own work. But he suddenly died of a heart attack before work could be started.
Oregon City was more related to the other side of my family. When a wooden plank road was finally built between the Mollala and Mulino area to Oregon City, my grandfather allegedly raced his Stutz Bearcat down that thing at 90mph. His flour mill is now where the Oregon State Historical Society printing press is now housed.
Drew sorry for the late response to your post - I must not of seen it. Your family has a fascinating history! I am very impressed that your Aunt Lucia Wiley was such a fine painter! The painting of Captain Gray at the Tillamook Post Office is huge!!!! I looked it up on line and I hope the restoration of it in 2017 has gone well. Our families share a lot of history in Oregon. My great grandfather Elissee Meresse was an active photographer. The family immigrated from Northern France in 1889. He had studied art, photography, and college in Paris in the 1870's. They emigrated to Oregon City, with a summer property in Netarts. I have a collection of his full plate albumen prints and a few albumen stereo views of: Oregon City, Netarts, camping on the Wilson River road, vacationers on the beach near Tillamook, and Netarts, and other images. They had three small buildings on the property - I have a ceramic plate with an image of the buildings. He ran a business called "Netarts photo" during the summer at the beach. While he was also actively photographing in Oregon City. They moved to Forrest Grove in the 1890's where he taught Art and French at Tualitin Academy, and Pacific College (now Pacific University). At this time he is said to also to run a photographic studio in Forest Grove with his son Frank Meresse. The cabin at Netarts Beach (Now Oceanside) was burned down and never re-built.
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