We went for a lovely drive today to Coupeville, which is a little town on Whidbey Island. To get to Coupeville we first had to drive west from the mainland onto Fidalgo Island, and then south onto Whidbey Island. Whidbey Island is the largest island in the Puget Sound, and the only way to get onto it, other than by ferry, is by driving over Deception Pass Bridge. We stopped along the edge of the bridge on the way over and on the way back to take pictures as it is a really cool looking bridge, but from either direction I couldn’t get the whole bridge – but you get the idea. The drive through the island was lovely, the central part of the island is the country’s first historical reserve, Ebey’s Landing National Historic Reserve, which protects a rural working landscape that looks much as it did 100 years ago. As well as extensive farmland the island has vast areas of forest and miles and miles of beautiful shoreline.

Mike: Nice countryside, lots of water!!

Skagit Sauk river heading to Samish bay

Deception Pass bridge

Samish Bay

We drove through Oak Harbor, which is a military town as evidenced by the jets flying over our heads on the drive over the island, before arriving in Coupeville. Coupeville, established in 1853, is one of the oldest communities in Washington and it has beautiful big old houses lining many of the streets. It was fairly quiet when we got there but the lady at the Visitor Information was very friendly and Mike had no trouble finding an open sweet shop where he stocked up on licorice.

We found this little guy waiting outside the visitor information place

Coupeville Wharf and mike forgot his hat

Coupeville main street

After wandering around the town for a while and checking out the views over the bay we headed back north, back over Deception Pass Bridge, and on into Anacortes. This city dating from the 1860’s sits on the northern end of Fidalgo Island and is a very industrial city. Once a bustling fishing, canning, logging and mill town, it is now home to two major refineries and many boat builders; it is also where the ferries to San Juan Islands depart from. We didn’t spend too long in Anacortes before heading out, stopping along the way at one of the farm stores along the road to buy some juicy blueberries and raspberries, yummy.

View from Deception Pass bridge of Skagit Bay

We took a quick zip through La Conner but didn’t stop as the place was heaving and we couldn’t find anywhere to park Xena (having a big arse is something of a disadvantage on occasion). So we headed toward Mt. Vernon and found a nice little park to have lunch at before heading home.