Clear blue sunny skies greeted us this morning, the cost of this was a further drop in temperature to 44F.
Although cool, it was a good day to go exploring so we headed off to Padre Island. Essentially Padre / South Padre Island is a large sand bar that runs down the coast of Texas from Corpus Christi to Brownsville. It is broken up in places to allow shipping to pass through into inland waterways.
We headed over to Port Aransas, about 18 miles east of here, it’s on the island joined to the mainland by a bridge and a ferry. The ferry was almost unique in that it was free. Although the distance across the water was only a few hundred yards and only took a few minutes there were 5 docking stations on each side of the crossing and seven ferries available.
We crossed into the town, which was nothing special. I did get excited at one point when we saw a cafe / bakery, especially as it was mid morning coffee time. Unfortunately the bakery part didn’t seem to bake, and everyone inside was digging into big breakfasts; we left un-satiated (if that is a word, which I doubt).
We drove out of the town and discovered a beach access road, which we took. This led us through a golf course and directly onto the beach. At the entrance was a sign that the beach was considered a town road, and as such all rules of the road applied.
Beach Port Aransas, Tx
As we moved further down the beach we saw a group of trailers
Trailers on beach at Port Aransas, Tx
It seems trailers can stay for a maximum of 3 nights, and there appears to be no cost. There is also no hydro, water, sewer, internet or other essentials to living it rough!
We parked the truck and wandered down the beach for a while but the wind was pretty cold so we headed back to the truck. The beach itself must have been 2 or 3 miles long, and pure sand.
After the exercise and disappointment of the bakery it was time to find lunch. We headed back to the town and found a seafood restaurant on the outskirts where we had a delicious meal of fresh shrimp.
On the way to the restaurant Lyn spotted a nature park, so we headed back there to walk off lunch. We parked the truck and headed off towards an observation tower about a mile away. The path was either fine gravel or boardwalk and was well maintained. We saw our usual egrets and blue heron as well as a roseate spoonbill which is the colour of a pink flamingo (sorry Amanda, too far away for a photo).
Next to the park was a small airfield where there was some parachute jumping taking place, this rather surprised me as there was a good 15-20mph wind blowing. One parachutist landed back on the airfield, the other appeared to land on the beach… not sure if that was intentional!
We headed back across the ferry, and halfway across I spotted a dolphin fin in the water. In fact there were a pair of dolphins that swam and jumped, and passed a few yards in front of the ferry…. an unexpected bonus.
The other unexpected bonus (this time for the truck) was a trip to the car wash to get rid of all the mud from the previous campground.