Spring Beach Trip to Duck North Carolina, Beach Birds and Restaurants

Early April I slipped away to enjoy a week at the Beach with a dear friend. It was a perfect time of year before the Summer rush. I left my new greenhouse behind at a crucial time. I had my seedlings coming up in the greenhouse but it was pretty calm in the garden so it ended up a good decision.

The weather was generally warm enough in Duck, North Carolina to get outside every day. We booked a house ocean view with a hot tub. We even sat on the beach a few days but most of our time was spent hiking or reclining on the decks. I even found some time to rotate between two books and we attempted to read aloud one of my favorite books, The Devil in the White City, but it ended up being so very time consuming. We turned on the TV only once, the very last evening, because we were packing and trying to down leftovers.

The sunrises were glorious and our hikes were peaceful. We checked out a nearby trail, the Pine Island Audubon Nature Trail and made it up to Corolla several times to walk the supposed "wild horse areas". A lot of poo views but no ponies in sight. We headed out one day over to Manteo to visit The Elizabethan Gardens. 

As always, there were plenty of things to see and do. We had the best food ever and my fav coffee shop with enormous biscuits, Treehouse Cafe, had just opened for the season. A word to the wise, wait until April 1 to go to Duck as many restaurants do not fire up until then! Missing out on all that good food would be so sad. Our favorite found restaurant was NC Coast Bar and Grill. We discovered their wonderful beignets so had to hit it twice, once for a dinner sunset. An interesting phenomenon is that the sun rises only over the beach and the sun sets only over the sound side (the outer banks is a barrier island strip having 2 open sides). If your beach house is situated on the ocean side you have to go over to the sound side to see a sun set so restaurants on that side are busy during that period of the day.

Curiously we didn't see any Ducks in Duck but enjoyed many Cormorants and my favorite seabird the Pelican. We had numerous flyovers of Pelicans and even saw a few Dolphins. There were not many bird sightings in the forests we hiked but my Merlin bird sound identification app on my phone picked up many different calls. I was surprised to see quite a few butterflies during this time of year.

It's never long enough but my greenhouse and messy gardens were calling me home.

Plan a trip somewhere this year, have some fun!

~Rebecca