We’re making our way up the NC coast to spend a couple of days in Beaufort and then head out to Ocracoke Island. We stopped for the night in Pawley’s Island, a SC barrier island that is an older style summer resort with a much slower pace than what lies north in towns like Myrtle Beach. We spent a few hot hours at BrookGreen, a sculpture and Botanical Garden park founded in 1931 by Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington; Anna was a prominent sculptor in the early 1900s. The gardens were very formal with elaborate fountains and mini gardens dedicated to various Huntington family members or donors. You can see the threatening clouds in the pictures. The humidity was staggering! It was just starting to rain as we headed out.
We had some hours to kill on our way to Beaufort so we decided to drive right along the coast and just see what we came up. Up is the word for Myrtle Beach! The high rise hotels are many and all arrayed along the coastline blocking all but the tiniest bit of water view. We thwarted them by paying too many $$s to park and walked along the boardwalk for a while. No surfing happened but we really had to take advantage of the convenient photo op stations!
Beaufort NC was great. It has a nice little downtown and marina that was walking distance from our wonderful airbnb. Sunday morning was actually chilly (yay!!!!!) so we caught up on email and headed for the Emerald Isle in the afternoon to ride. The path there is great to get bikers and walkers around without being on the main road but it’s through some busy areas with plenty of street crossing and traffic so not the sort of trail that you’d call a destination ride. The last few miles were quieter and ended at a great beach on the tip of the island. We ditched the shoes and the bikes and had a nice beach walk before we headed back.
Today (Monday) we opted for a 6 hour boat cruise from Beaufort to Cape Lookout. What a good decision that was! The boat was a catmarran sailed by Captain Robert and his hard working mate Russell who is in Captain training school. It was a calm morning so there was more motoring than sailing but we arrived at Cape Lookout in the promised 90 minutes and were served a delicious lunch before heading to shore for general beachy time and shell collecting. It was a beautiful day – bright blue sky, completely clear and crisp fall air. The best day we have had on the entire trip I think! Our shell haul was impressive – what we’ll do with them, I do not know but it was lots of fun!
Next up was the lighthouse, a short sail away. Our time there was short but we took a nice walk on a boardwalk trail. If you’ve seen one lighthouse…. We were all drowsy on the way back but did rouse ourselves to take advantage of the Captain and Russel’s kind offer to take pictures.I’m pretty sure I’d have a tough time qualifying for Captain school!
Tonight we’re at the Cedar Ranch Motel which is very close to the ferry dock for tomorrow’s 2+ hour ride to Ocracoke.