Woke up to an overcast and cool morning (5C), but no wind!
We headed out to South Padre Island which is about 25 miles east of here. About 7 miles east we passed through the town of Los Fresnos. The trip into and out of Los Fresnos reminded me a lot of the trip from the airport to just about any Mexican resort. Many houses were the same style, and there were a number of houses selling fruit veg etc in their front yards.
The whole area is totally flat and I am sure they don’t know how to put bends in roads! There seem to be two types of roads around here, gravel tracks or 4-lane roads.
The next town was Port Isabel, on the east side of the town was a causeway and a bridge that led to South Padre Island. When you come off the bridge there is another town which is home to a number of holiday condos, hotels and “souvenir” shops by the dozen. Going north from the bridge the island quickly narrowed until it was no more than a road on a sand dune!
The island is home to a sea turtle rescue centre (to be visited at a later date) and a number of nature/birding trails. We drove north a few miles until the road was blocked by a barrier, beyond the barrier there were work crews clearing sand off the road. I am not sure whether the road is public or private beyond this point. We pulled off the road and went for a walk along the beach, which was covered with shells.
Shells at South Padre Island
Heading back south we pulled off onto a beach access road, and actually took the truck onto the beach. As it was cool and grey there were very few people about, however there were a couple of people preparing a small para-sail that was connected to a small 3-wheel buggy. We later saw them riding around the beach courtesy of wind power.
A little further south we stopped off at one of the nature trails and walked along a boardwalk out to a bird watching area where we could see blue herons, pelicans, a variety of ducks etc.
We’ll be going back to the island a few more times to see the rest of it as well as to the kite festival in a couple of weeks