The wood, the trees

Trekking around the coastal forests of Washington and Oregon, one thing is abundantly clear; that the forest itself is a living, breathing thing. The trees, animals, fungi all exist as organs in one body. And that body, like ours, is fuelled by air and water.

The forest is in a state of constant flux - wind, rain and occasionally fire see to that. For the thousands of species that thrive here, it is the trees, of course, that make it what it is. Some may live to be hundreds of years old, others will be cut short in their prime - the wind accounting for 80% of all felled trees.

Life flourishes around the death of a tree. Some die, quite literally on their feet. Standing dead trees, or snags, provide habitat for many other living creatures. Woodpeckers, beetles, ants, salamanders, not to mention fungi, thrive around the curious standing skeletons. A 200 foot pine, after death, will take two centuries to finally reduce to a stump.

Fallen trees hold water like a sponge, so become a refuge for the parched inhabitants of the forest. Known as nursery logs, they provide the launchpad for the life of new trees. As the new trees grow over the felled, in time the nursery log decomposes beneath them - its death the catalyst for new life. In the forest you can see the trees that sprouted from such beginnings, the shape of the nursery log still visible in their roots, as though they were standing on stilts.

The rainforests of Washington State are incredibly damp. Moss grows on every single branch, draped over everything, as though some eager child had hung spiderwebs throughout the house one hallowe'en. It is an eerie sight. With the moisture too, come the fungi, every shape and size, on the forest floor, and clinging to the great trees themselves like limpets.

There are lessons to be learned in the dark depths of the forest. That so many species, great and small can coexist in such incredible, symbiotic harmony. And that the phenomenal power of nature restores and creates whenever it destroys: that life grows out of death. The reason for all this; the wind that brings the trees to the ground, and the water that feeds them.

In this great scheme, man lingers among the ants and the fungi that live in the shade of the mighty trees, whose giant shadows consume our own. Far greater than us are the tiny droplets of water that form on the fungus that clings to the tree; they truly are the giver of life.

Portland, Oregon

I'll put my hands up here and say I didn't even know where Portland was a year ago. Well, it's in Oregon (didn't know where that was either) and it's a slight, but extremely worthwhile diversion from Route 101. And you can't talk about it without talking about food.

Natalie, a friend from cooking school works in one of the best restaurants in town. She's off Friday and Saturday but catering for a party of 65. I offer to donate my skills on Friday to help prep, so for the first time in a long time, I get to spend a day in the kitchen. Even the mundane things, like chopping pounds of tomatoes for pico de gallo brings joy to my soul.

In the evening we eat in her restaurant, Veritable Quandary. The starters steal the show - a cheeseboard with summer berries, nuts and the best bread yet, toasted and brushed with olive oil. The best cheese of all is a cremeux that has the consistency of soft butter. Spread on the sourdough with a deep fried marcona almond for company, it is divine. We also have the dates; from the inside out, marcona almond, goat's cheese, date, panceta. Say no more. Mains are good, I wish I'd ordered Nat's scallops rather than the lamb, but since I've not eaten any red meat for what seems like weeks, I won't go on about it. The kitchen treat us to desserts, a berry crisp (American for crumble) and chocolate truffles that are too good.

Ken's Artisan Bakery - probably the best bread yet

Feeling like I needed to burn off last night's meal, I opted for my new favourite thing when you only have a day or two in a new city, and hired a bike on Saturday morning. I used it to ride directly to Ken's Artisan Bakery, producer of last night's bread, to buy myself a loaf. Whilst there I grab a Stumptown Coffee, the best in Oregon, and probably a few other states as well. I spent the rest of the day riding around town, then out of town. I didn't take that many pictures, since I wasn't really feeling it. It's not an especially photogenic place; it's the food that makes it special.

Kids in a fountain on the riverside, Portland

If I'd been in town longer, I'd have eaten so much more. There are food carts scattered all over the city, selling every conceivable cuisine. There's a doughnut shop, Voodoo Doughnuts, that has a permanent queue stretching to the next block. An abundance of small cafes and bakeries sell local, organic food, and are packed to the rafters. If some infection were to strike me down in Portland, as in Vancouver and forcibly extend my stay, I probably wouldn't complain.

But the Road beckons once more. I checked out on Sunday, went to the gym for the first time in who knows how long, and headed for the river beach north of town to put my feet up for a couple of hours. Before skipping town I had breakfast in Bijou Cafe, where I took this photo. The line on the mirror reads "Good conversation is the perfect accompaniment for a good meal."

Talking to yourself: the only way to be assured of intelligent conversation

Columbian Cafe

Having traversed the four-mile bridge over the Columbia that links Washington and Oregon, and suddenly encountered a string of assholes on the road, I pulled over for a restorative breakfast at the Columbian Cafe, which everyone says good things about.

They're not wrong. House baked toasted sourdough is very good, and comes with a plate of three jellies (en; jams): garlic, jalapeno and cayenne. They absolutely kick ass. It's exactly this kind of inspiration I'm looking for on my travels. The rest of the breakfast is good enough - beans are great, spuds are less so. But the bacon is wonderful. They cure and smoke it themselves, with brown sugar and maple. There's nothing worse than over sweet pork products, but this just hints at it, the pigginess winning the day.

The grill man is a girl. She used to be a cook, she said, then she went away and trained as a massage therapist and did that for a few years, and now she's back. I can't be sure that she did the right thing without having her stick her elbows in my back, but she's a natural on the grill. In a brief lull between orders she looked genuinely agitated. People shift, she told me. They want different things, go away and do them. But the universe shifts too, she said, and best of all is when they shift together.

Amen to that, with garlic jam on top.

Washington State

When I first flew over Washington on my way into Seattle three or four weeks ago, I was amazed at how green it was. My Road Trip (sorry) through the state was cut short - condensed into three days by an eye infection, lack of planning and a propensity to leave mobile phones on toilet roll holders when using public conveniences.

It takes a bit of adjusting to the practicalities of a Road Trip (somehow capitalising it makes me feel less culpable). Obviously, the first job is to actually get somewhere. This prohibits stopping every time you see something you want to take a photo of, taking excessive detours just to tick off boxes, or pulling up in every town you drive through. I have a small guide book which I'm stealing ideas from (well, they cost me $14.99) and the rest is just intuition really.

Washington was fairly easy because I didn't drive through that many towns. Port Angeles? No thanks. Forks? Knives more like. Aberdeen? Ha ha ha. Just keep driving and admire the view. I had a target too - Portland by Thursday, so I knew I couldn't waste too much time. Consequently I aimed to reach the south-westernmost tip of the state by Wednesday night; the quite brilliantly named Cape Disappointment. (So called because the guy who first arrived there incorrectly assumed there wasn't a river there, as promised. There was - the bloody massive Columbia River that requires a four mile long bridge to cross it. Must have been foggy that day).

I stop in a few places along the way, to eat or photograph the local curiosities, like this statue of a running fish (?) in Sekiu, or the world's largest frying pan in Long Beach:

In a small town called Westport, I stop at Brady's Oysters, which is meant to kick ass. I somehow manage to spunk forty bucks on wild smoked chinook salmon that is out of this world, smoked ling (good), a few oysters, some crab and a couple of pounds of pickled herrings that are a particular weakness of mine. I grab a polystyrene eski, fill it with ice, add a six pack of beer and now have a travel fridge in the trunk of the 'stang.

But really, the whole thrill of the RT (abbreviating it makes me feel even less culpable) is what you see behind the wheel. It's not knowing exactly what is round the next corner, bar two yellow lines and some breathtaking views. And it's getting used to the fact that you have to drive past so many places where you really want to stop, and stop at some where you don't. I try and pull over for the viewpoints, but they're normally crap for photos. The only exception so far being this spot on Lake Crescent, where the sun shone through the trees, round about the time that some honest guy was pulling his pants down back in Port Townsend...

You are in Cougar Country

Cougars are seldom seen inhabitants of the Olympic wilderness. Attacks on humans are rare. Few people will ever see a cougar, but if you do see one, the following suggestions can increase your chances of a safe experience.

PREVENT AN ENCOUNTER
Don't hike or jog alone. Keep children within sight and close to you. Avoid dead animals.
Keep a clean camp. Leave pets at home.
Be alert to your surroundngs. Use a walking stick.

IF YOU SEE A COUGAR
Don't run, it may trigger a cougar's attack instinct. Stand and face the cougar.
Appear large: wave your arms or a jacket above your head.
Pick up small children. Do not approach, back away slowly.
Keep eye contact.

IF A COUGAR BECOMES AGGRESSIVE
Don't turn your back. Remain standing. Don't take your eyes off the cougar.
Throw things. Shout Loudly. Fight back aggressively.

Coasting

For the next three or four weeks, bar a few brief inland sorties, I will be hugging the coast of the Pacific Ocean. My first glimpse of it since I left Lima back in May came at Ruby Beach on the Washington coast, and it looked very different.

You have to walk through a forest of coastal firs to get to the beach itself, which is littered with driftwood. It's the same story all along the coast as I make my way down to Oregon. Every stretch of beach is piled with dead trees, brought to the ocean by the rain and the rivers, tossed about and eventually left on the shore to bake in the sun.The same trees that stand proudly between sea and land lie broken in their own shadows. So tall and uniform in life, they take on all manner of aspects in their almost petrified death. I wander around looking for the strangest, tossing aside those logs that are strewn in my path like a young Geoff Capes.

The first thing to strike me about the ocean itself is its force. Sea stacks testify to its power - the remnants of promontories eroded away by the relentless pounding of the surf. Rocky land tunnelled through then completely isolated from the land over thousands of years. No reason nor purpose to the destruction, just the inevitable result of a seemingly irresistible force meeting an apparently, but apparently not indestructible object.

The isolation of the rock is brought about solely by the movement of water. And yet when they first meet, when the huge body of water strikes the land and dissipates into thousands of imperceptibly tiny droplets, it would seem as though the rock won. Only in the fullness of time, and with the cumulation of that relentless impact, does its true power manifest itself. A few feet from where the surf crashes into the rocks, that same water, pooled around the pebbles it has smoothed away over the centuries, lies perfectly, harmlessly still.

The sea never sleeps. On Tuesday night, by Lake Quinault, I thought I could hear the ocean in the distance, as though a tiny shell were pressed to my ear. Last night, on the Long Beach Peninsula, I camped barely a hundred yards from its edge and the sound was deafening, all night long. The spray hammered down on my little canvas house. It is almost frightening, and certainly humbling, to feel Mother Nature so close, and with nothing but a two hundred dollar tent to protect me from her irresistible force.

A kind of magic

Having brought the car situation firmly under control, I took care of accommodation worries for the next eight weeks before I left Seattle. I dropped into the local REI and bought myself a tent, sleeping bag, floor mat and a couple of pillows. May a canopy of stars be my majestical roof.

I never went camping as a child, so it doesn't really hold any magic for me. The kind of magic you need to make sleeping in an area the size of Alec Guinness's 'cooler' in Bridge on the River Kwai seem like a good idea. To make you wilfully, gleefully even, subject yourself to being bitten, pissed on and generally set about by a host of God's tiny creatures you didn't even know existed, and do so in the absence of every convenience, modern or otherwise, that man has ever deigned to create. But hey, you've got to start somewhere.

I make it as far as Quinault Lake in the Olympic National Park, Washington, where I'm planning to bed down for the night. Driving through the forest, I'm thinking Deliverance, laced with a bit of Carry On Camping for comic effect. I quickly come to my senses and pull up at the Rain Forest Lodge and enquire into the availability of rooms. Then I man up, tell them where to stick their $130 and find myself a pitch down by the lake. Fifteen head scratching minutes later and the tent is up, with only a few minor complications.

The campground itself is tiny - just five plots, a car park and a hole in the ground. But each one is nicely secluded and right on the edge of the lake. I crack open a beer and sit back to watch the sunset. A family camped down the end set off in a canoe to paddle around the perfectly still waters as the sun, already slipped from sight, casts its last rays into the nascent night sky. In that brief moment, I can't honestly think of anywhere in the world I would rather be.

As darkness finally envelops us, I retire for the night. Later on I make a mental note not to drink more than three beers when camping, since getting up for a piss involves clothing oneself in an extremely confined space before negotiating a series of obstacles only slightly less challenging than the Krypton Factor assault course. Nonetheless, and to my lasting surprise, I actually sleep extremely well. All to be heard are the sounds of nature: the tweeting of the birds as they too drift off to sleep, the croaking of frogs and the occasional call of a desperate cougar. I can hear the calm lake lapping gently at the shore, and in the distance, I am certain, the faint sound of the Pacific Ocean as it pounds the coast.

I wake twice in the night, in contrasting circumstances. First up, my neighbour Richard and his son, Richard III (I shit you not*), are having raccoon trouble. They attempt to rectify this by whisper-shouting to one another - "F**king 'coons dad" - and then throwing large heavy objects, presumably logs, wherever they think the little blighters might be. Strangely, since I am only ten feet away, they seem to be leaving me alone (the raccoons, not the pair of Dicks).

The next time I wake it is to the sound of dawn slowly breaking in the temperate rainforest around me. As the animals stir themselves into life, it is as though their combined calls are beckoning the sun forth from its daily hiatus. It's a unique experience, and quite wondrous for me by virtue of the fact that having enjoyed it for five minutes, I stick some earplugs in and miraculously fall asleep for another five hours. And that, in itself, is a kind of Magic.



* In Seattle I heard a woman calling out to her two sons Hudson and Beckham. Good job Danny Shittu didn't marry a Spice Girl and move to LA, I thought.