October 26, 27, 28, 29, 2021
8,363 miles so far…
We are camping in the sand dunes at Oregon Inlet, and reading the sign by the dumpster about not throwing your mangled tents inside, but putting them in the “salvage yard” by the fence?! Another storm is approaching, and we only have soft sand to stake our cheap pop-up tent to. Will this be our lucky night to run & hide in the motel? We will have to let you know later.
Cape Hatteras & the Outer Banks offer up beach vacation pleasures for all persuasions, including the likes of us nature lovers and hiking fools. Take a left at the surf shop/BBQ joint, and you end up at the largest maritime forest on the East coast! Or drive thru tractor work removing sand dunes encroaching the road for miles, and find the incoming flock
of white pelicans & Ibis touching down in the fresh water inlet. All it takes is a bit of time driving this narrow strip of barrier islands, and you can find stunning areas to lose yourself in!
Bodie lighthouse, with it’s black & white facade, was our first glimpse at the maritime history of the area, though it was closed for climbing up due to Covid.
In the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, we decided to take a tour with an outfitter to do a paddle. It was a larger group than we hoped, and we did not get single seat boats, but somehow our boats ended up front for the best spot in the lineup. This area is the most northern environs of the gator, and our excitement for gator sightings was expectedly high. Turtles, a few frogs, and finally I spotted a little gator with my binoculars! Our guide encouraged us to go and get a close look. We took her up on that, and again when we saw a
monster-sized one later on!
After sitting in a boat for a few hours, a walk in the woods was needed to circulate the blood. Nags Head Woods, an area established by the Nature Conservancy, led us into a grand stand of maritime mixed forest. The trees and their massive and colorful trunks were the highlight, until we saw a weird looking mammal swimming towards a wood duck. Not a beaver, but what we later learned was a nutria (coypu). Invasive and overpopulated, somehow these cute rodents are taking over the swamps.
The next morning we headed south to the Cape Hatteras lighthouse (this time closed for maintenance!?). We took a slightly buggy but nice little walk on the Buxton woods trail, and a quick look around the Graveyard of the Atlantic museum (maybe unwise to learn about the excessive shipwrecks of the Atlantic, considering our own Atlantic crossing coming up😳). My folks joined us back at camp to attempt a windy but successful cookout, which worked only because we blocked the wind as much as we could so the coals didn‘t burn out before the meat cooked…
On Friday, though my folks and I should have known better based on the clouds overhead, we left on a short stroll, and put on our sunglasses for the Kitty Hawk swamp walk. Distracted by a big Red Bellied Water snake, we got soaked by a passing downpour, and didn’t want to walk back past the snake that we had clearly angered, so got lost and more soaked🥺. We tried to dry out on the surprisingly lovely Duck boardwalk, but only when I met up with Stacey later @ Miller’s Waterfront Restaurant, was I actually able to don dry socks. The view from the second floor open windowed restaurant, with kiteboarders and sailboarders, entertained us till the sunset paled. Next, we say our goodbyes to traveling with my folks, and head back to the campsite for an exciting gale force wind tent experience, which somehow the tent survived..!?
