The morning of the second day of our trip started with a quick drive from Carolina Beach down the road the Fort Fisher Historic Site. We took the dogs on a walk around the fort and explored the visitor’s center before driving down to the end of the road, past the ferry to Southport to walk on the rocks that stretch out into the water at the end of Fort Fisher. I’d been to the rocks several times before with my family and have great memories of slipping and sliding on the rocks as we tried to be the one to get the furthest out. Will, on the other hand, had not been before even though he spent many summers down in Southport. Unfortunately, we got to the rocks during high tide and weren’t able to walk out on the rocks this time. Will swears it’s no big deal to walk out across them, but I’d bet you a box of chocolate and a bag of dimes that you couldn’t make it all the way across the wall to Zeke’s island without busting your butt a few times.
As we made our way back from the rocks we stopped by Fort Fisher State Recreation Area. Gus had never been to the beach before so of course, we had to stop for a while to let him experience the ocean. Although he clearly was not amused, Lilly had a blast running and jumping around in the sand! We spent a while out on the sand having them run back and forth from the waves before setting out for Hammock’s Beach State Park.
We rode up toward’s Wilmington on our way to Swansboro and stopped for a quick lunch at Flaming Amy’s because we’ve never been able to visit Wilmington and not stop here. If you’ve never been, make sure to put it on your must-do list. The staff are friendly, the atmosphere is very open and inviting, and of course, the food is incredible. Also, they give discounts if you show them your tattoos.
With our bellies full we continued on to Hammock’s Beach, only to get there after the visitor’s center had closed. This park isn’t too far from our home in Greenville so although we were a bit frustrated from driving all the way out there, we knew that we could plan a day trip to go back (which we ended up doing in April).
At this point it was after 5:00, rainy, and we didn’t have a real plan for camping that night. Ultimately, we had planned to take the ferry from Cedar Island to Ocracoke to start a quick trip up the Outer Banks to see the lighthouses before visiting Jockey’s ridge and heading back to the mainland, but we weren’t really having any luck finding campgrounds out that way and we still needed to visit Fort Macon before heading up the Outer Banks.
We finally found a privately owned, family campground quite near to the Cedar Island ferry and not too far from Fort Macon where we decided to camp for the night. It was still very rainy and really dark out (seriously, have you ever been this far out on the NC coast during an early March evening? It’s so, so dark!) even though it wasn’t too late. So we decided to stop for a quick pizza before making it to the campground so that we wouldn’t have to attempt cooking in the downpour.
Now you guys, let me tell you about this campground. I can’t even remember the name of it and I just tried to google it again and couldn’t even find it, but we basically ended up camping in a family’s backyard. Like on their grass near the waterfront. Like not a campsite at all really. Granted, it seemed like the family had turned their land into an RV resort because there were a lot of empty RVs around but otherwise, there was nothing about this place that really resembled a campground. The man we met was very nice though and he let us know that although he did have a bathroom for us to use there was no shower and then he let us know that we could basically park our teardrop anywhere in the backyard. It was a very interesting night, but we stayed very dry and cozy in the drop and we were again very thankful for not having to put up a tent.
Stay tuned for day 3 of our Eastern NC State Parks journey.
Life in the right lane,
Rachel
DMG Exploration 