TransAmerica Trail – Day 1

Cape Hatteras NC

We had an early breakfast before breaking camp to go to the ferry. We were in line around 9am for the ferry. The ferry wasn’t even half full, everyone must have been going the other direction toward the island for the Labor Day weekend.

The ferry ride to the mainland was 2 hours. We sat in the lounge with three other travelers that had stayed in the same campground as us. One lady was from Georgia and the other was from Florida. They were on their way home from a baseball tournament. We talked for a while with Kurt, he was from Germany and had rode his bicycle across the USA from Seattle. He was pulling a small trailer with his gear and was now on his way to Miami.

We left the ferry dock to begin our TransAmerica trail journey for real!

After leaving the ferry we stopped for lunch a at a cool spot along the river and then drove on through the coastal lowlands. It was very scenic and that gave way to more mundane scenery but we enjoyed every minute of it.  We hadn’t done laundry since leaving home a week ago so we stopped at a laundry mat in Havelock NC.. It felt good to have clean clothes again.

Fisher’s Landing NC

We needed to find a camping spot for the night and found a nice National Forest Site with showers but it was full so we kept driving. Just before dark we came to Fishers Landing campground in the Croatan NF. The tenting area was blocked off at the parking area so we parked the Jeep and made our lunch in the lot.

Apparently he park was a popular fishing spot and soon after dark campers were arriving and hauling in generators, lights, and wagon loads of gear. The peace and quiet disappeared quickly after dark so we left the park and went to a nearby Walmart. We passed it on our way out of Havelock and now a Walmart lot seemed the best option to get some sleep.