Outer Banks Day 4

Day 4, Tuesday April 12, 2010

We are up bright and early this morning since we are going to Ocracoke Island which requires a 45 minute ferry ride. We were told that it can take up to 2 hours to get on the ferry. We got on our way a little after 8 AM. Traffic was a little heavier than usual, but not bad. When we took the road to Ocracoke, there was no traffic at all which was nice.

There was a light house at Bodie which is part of the National Parks System that we wanted to see. When we got there, it was surrounded with scaffolding and we could not take any pictures or take a tour of the inside. I did find a picture of the light house and boardwalk and downloaded them. It looked like it would have been a good stop, however we skipped Bodie and continued our trip.

There was a life saving station a little farther down that has been renovated and turned in to a museum. It was the first--and maybe the only one--that was manned by an all black crew. However, it did not open until mid April so we continued our trip.
The next stop was the lighthouse at Cape Hatteras. The park was open, but we could not walk to the top. That was ok with us. The climb at Corolla left our legs pretty sore. We did tour the small museum and walk the beaches. Cape Hatteras light house was moved about 10 years ago because of beach erosion. We visited the original sight which has some of the foundation stones at the old site. The site has now been taken over by the sand.
Insert hatteras slide show


After leaving Cape Hatteras light house we went to the port to board the ferry to Orcacoke Island. We had a very short wait before getting on the ferry. What a perfect day for a ferry ride. It was very warm and sunny. The ferry travels through the sounds and is protected from any rough water. When we arrived at Orcacoke Island, we landed at the end opposite the town. It was 14 miles to the town and there is very few buildings outside the town. We stopped at a place called Howard’s Pub for lunch. It is a well advertised place and probably has over 300 different types of beers. I had the blue fish special and Linda had a crab cake sandwich. Both were great. We also had a draft Yuengling which is brewed in Pennsylvania. I have had the beer before and liked the taste. When we visited friends in Pennsylvania, John and I stopped by the brewery for a tour and a taste. Great friends; fantastic beer; good food. What more can you ask for. We had great food and good beer, but lunched by ourselves. I guess 2 out of 3 are not too bad.

After lunch we drove to the end of the island and visited the National Park Visitor’s center. There is a small museum there. We bought a National Park Passport and we got it stamped. While in Arkansas we visited Pea Ridge Battlefield which is a National Park. We have visited many parks and could not remember all of them--old age I guess. We decided to buy a passport and start stamping it when we visited parks. I guess we should have stopped by the Bodie lighthouse just to stamp our book.

The little town of Ocracoke was interesting and contained many little shops. Most of the places were closed and had signs that April 15 was the opening days. We walked to the lighthouse which is the oldest lighthouse in North Carolina and took a few pictures. On the walk back, we stopped by a small antique shop which had some interesting glassware. Very successful shopping tour for me--saw a lot, but didn’t buy anything.

We walked back to where we parked our car and visited a small museum operated by a Historical Society. It was a restored house that had some period furniture and pictorial displays of events that happened in the local area. After the museum, we took a different road out of town to stop at another antique shop however the shop was closed. I guess it is a seasonal shop.

We left the town and headed back to the ferry. We stopped at a few of the beach entrances and were pleasantly surprised at how good they were. Orcachoke Island is listed as one of the ten best beaches in the world and I can see why. There are miles of clear, sandy beaches with beautiful water. We walked the beaches to look for shells, but, there were not many good shells. Most were broken because of the wave action.



We drove back to the ferry and lucked out again--ferry was there and we got on without waiting too long. We had a pleasant ride back to Cape Hatteras. We stopped at a few of the beaches on the way back to check them out and they were beautiful areas to visit--long empty beaches with plenty of fine sand.

We finally got back to our rooms after 6 PM. I settled in for the day and Linda went to an Ice Cream Social at the Rec Center. Tomorrow is another day and looks like the weather will not be too good for touring. I suppose we will stick close to home; have lunch at a good restaurant; and do some of the inside activities.

Linda is reading some of the activities listed and came across an announcement for a week long bike ride--the 8th Annual Outer Banks Bike Week which is sponsored by three Harley dealers on the outer banks. Tim and Vickie load up the bike and come on down. There were 20,000 bikes last year.