West Sound Guide 2018

WEST SOUND NEIGHBORHOODS
Festivals
and farmers
markets in
Port Orchard
Don Deffley is enveloped in steam as he performs a boiler blowdown on his locomotive at South Kitsap
Regional Park. The Kitsap Live Steamers are a unique part of the community, offering real steam-engine
rides on the second and fourth Saturday of every month, April through October. MEEGAN M. REID/KITSAP SUN
360-340-3673
Contractor Lie# SCOTTHR933QG
30 ❚ MAY 2018 ❚ KITSAP SUN WEST SOUND GUIDE
The city by the bay remains defined largely by its
attractive waterfront, with a busy marina, park and
gazebo, and a new waterfront pathway that is extending
east along Beach Drive for runners, bicyclists and
walkers to appreciate Sinclair Inlet’s extensive shoreline.
A bustling farmers market operates downtown
spring through fall, and summer festivals — the campy
Seagull Calling Festival, boaters at the Chris Craft Rendevous,
and activities for everyone during Fathoms of
Fun — keep things lively.
Bay Street’s four-block main drag boasts restaurants
and cafés, a brewery, nail and hair salons, gift
shops and boutiques, not to mention a historic restored
movie theater, the Dragonfly. The city's marina,
operated by the Port of Bremerton, is a popular destination
and stays fully occupied by boaters nearly yearround,
and a quaint foot ferry buzzes quick trips to
Bremerton and back all day long. Being home to the
county administrative building and courthouse means
constant movement from employees and visitors up
and down Bay Street.
Port Orchard stretches inland as well, and booming
neighborhoods now constitute the city’s future.
Growth has been anchored by the McCormick Woods
residential community and stellar golf course, now
surrounded by new homes, with residential development
now stretching nearly to the community's other
noteworthy links, at Trophy Lake Golf and Casting
Club. East of Highway 16 are other projects rapidly
making South Kitsap a bustling area, but one that
holds on to an agricultural legacy through small family
farms, pumpkin patches and pasture lands that dot
the areas approaching Southworth and Olalla.
A major draw for residents year-round, but especially
during warmer months, is South Kitsap Regional
Park, a 209-acre area with ballfields, trails, a dog park,
picnic shelters and even a live railroad. The park is truly
a community institution, with the railroad operated
by a nonprofit, batting cages run by a local company,
and a skate park that was designed and built thanks to
hours of involvement from volunteer groups.