La Push

After three luxurious nights in Sequim we headed round to the western coast of the Olympic peninsula, to a small community called La Push, on the Quileute Indian Reservation. It's a tiny community - only 370-odd people live on the Res according to Wikipedia - but it's home to big beaches, big forests and even bigger trees.

A Very Big Tree

The tree above, on which I am standing and in which Daniel is standing, is driftwood - it actually washed up on First Beach and has since been pushed further ashore by the tail-end of the Japanese Tsunami. The beaches are covered in trees of various shapes and sizes, which have washed up over the years and now sit together in a tangle at the high tide line. Some are byproducts of the logging industry that dominates the area and would have fallen off trucks or the like. Others, possibly including the behemoth above, would have simply fallen off the cliffs into the ocean, whether from the mainland or one of the many rugged islands that are dotted along the coastline.

Rialto Beach

Second beach

Second Beach

Sunset from our balcony

We stayed in a (brilliant) motel room at the Quileute Oceanside Resort and could actually see the giant tree on the beach from our balcony. Up close, it was covered in "Team Jacob" graffiti, because La Push, and First Beach itself, is where much of the Twilight series takes place. The Quileutes have embraced the phenomena with a sense of humour - at the entrance to the reservation there is a sign saying "Treaty Line - No Vampires Allowed Past This Point." However, they had a tourism industry well before Twilight and will continue to have one long after, simply because La Push is such a beautiful and magical place.

The same cannot be said for the nearest town, Forks, which is where most of the Twilight action takes place. It feels like a tough, no-nonsense little town, which makes the ‘Dazzled by Twilight’ shop and the Twilight tour buses seem even more out of place. I think it’s a fairly hard-up place – there’s at least two trailer parks and they’re truly dilapidated. There’s a nice small-town feel though, and the people seem friendly enough. In any case, the checkout girl at the grocery wanted to know what we were doing in America, and if we saw lots of Kangaroos back home.