Elizabeth City to the Outer Banks

Sunday 28th May

The Outer Banks are a row of islands off the coast of North Carolina connected by ferries and bridges. We drove one way as far as we could until the road ended at the beach where to continue you had to have a 4 wheel drive, then you could drive 1.5 miles down the beach. We strolled along the edge of the sea watching the cars, some with really oversized wheels roaring along the beach, ignoring the 15mph speed limit. There were lots of pick ups with passengers in the back of the truck, some were even sitting on deckchairs. They bounced between the the deep tyre tracks rocking alarmingly. At the end of the 1.5 mile driving stretch they all parked up and relaxed on the beach. We watched as one vehicle with large oversized wheels got stuck in the sand, wheels spinning frantically, he obviously only had big wheels not 4 wheel drive. Luckily he was with a mate driving a red pick up also with oversized wheels but also, crucially, 4 wheel drive. They slung a towrope between them and the red pick up put his foot down. The engine roared and the pick up nearly jumped in the air, it wove from side to side as inch by inch it dragged its mate from the sand tracks. Finally onto hard sand they unhitched and drove away. Noticing the sky darkening we headed back, but before we got to the end of the beach the heavens opened and it lashed down. By the time we got to the car we were soaked. Dripping wet we drove off to look for a bed for the night and a meal. We found some loos where we stopped to change into dry clothes then pressed on and ate at the Froggy Dog, which was ok but very slow service. Our bed for the night was the Lighthouse Motel, a nice motel but rather pricey, but the other two in the area looked like large sheds so we gave them a miss. Once we had settled down in our room we checked the ferries for the morning and were dismayed that the only ferry with spaces left was 9pm! We hadn’t realised you could book, we thought it was a turn up and board ferry, and we had to get another ferry before that one to get to the second ferry. Kicking ourselves for not checking the ferry schedules earlier, we decided to cut our losses and set off early in the morning and drive back the way we have just come and go overland to our next stop. It will take 5 hours but actually the ferry would have taken longer allowing for travel time to the ferry and the 3 hour plus 1 hour ferry journeys. Ah well we won’t make that mistake again.Read more