Inevitably, after the day became dusk and the dusk became night we found ourselves close to the North Carolina border shrouded in an infinite darkness. It was at times like these that I acknowledged how alien true darkness is for me, a city dweller from a heavily populated and severely light polluted island. If I am being honest, it scared me more then I thought it would as we drove in the Beast completely unaware of what lay within the dark of night.
Eventually, as we could hear the sea lapping against North Carolina’s eastern shore, we turned left onto a causeway that extended onto a small island east of Jarvisburg. Here we found an expensive campsite that was completely exposed to a strong wind that whipped off the Atlantic Ocean. So after paying $30 to essentially park our car, we quickly wrapped up, set up camp and attempted to fall asleep.
Expensive CampsiteThe next morning, after using the campsites only shower that sat in an outdoor cubical from which you could watch the clouds float above your head as you washed, we set off. It was at this point that the reality of the coastline could finally be comprehended.
I’m not sure why, but I had assumed that the American eastern coastline was a hard-edged barrier between land and sea. However, it turned out that the reality is far more delicate then that. It appears that a long line of thin low lying islands stretch south as far as the eye can see. Their bare and exposed beauty was a welcome surprise to me, as I genuinely did not know that they existed. Therefore with intrigue, I thumbed through the book of maps that Rebecca’s father had kindly lent us. This clearly showed a narrow road that extended south for 80 miles across these islands, which appeared to be linked by a variety of bridges and ferries. This was perfect.
After an excellent breakfast at “Stack ‘em High’, a restaurant where a friendly Ukrainian waitress served us our first taste of grits, a bland corn based American delicacy, we headed toward Kitty Hawk National Park. I was excited about this as it was here; between the huge imposing sand dunes that the Wright brothers first successfully managed to test fly a fixed wing flying machine. This means that it was here that the possibility of air travel first became a realistic proposition for humanity. It's quite a thought when you think about it.
Kitty Hawk
More Kitty HawkNext stop was Roanoke Island, another important site for the history of both America and the UK. This was (apparently) the location of the England’s first real attempt of a colonial foothold in the Americas in the 16th century. It was also the location of a story that goes a little like this…
After a first failed attempt 1585 Sir Walter Raleigh, Queen Elizabeth’s trusted explorer, attempted to establish a colony on Roanoke island in 1587. This time his aim was to build a functioning and sustainable community with woman and children. His ambitions were at least partially realised when upon this site the first offspring of white Europeans in America was born. The name of that child was Virginia Dare.
For the next 2 years Raleigh could not return to personally check up on the progress of the colony, as he was busy locking horns with Spanish. However, upon the eventual return of English ships all that could be found of that first community was the word "CROATOAN" (the name of a neighbouring island) carved into a tree.
The fate of those early settlers has now, for the last 400 years been the subject of intense and often wild speculation.
It's a nice story.
After walking around Roanoke Island for about an hour, we continued our passage south along Highway 12 through Pea Island and Cape Hatteras National Sea Shore. Here numerous small exposed communities of impressive wooden houses stood on stilts in defiance of a relentless bombardment of waves. Between these communities vast sand dunes clung onto a fine golden sand below a wide-open sky. This truly was a beautiful place.
Cape Hatteras National Sea Shore© All Images By Paul
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