Outer Banks and more

From Morehead City we continued south down the North Carolina coast toward our destination of Wilmington, crossing over to Topsail Island and down the length of it, passing through many small, decaying towns and lots of pretty coastal landscape.

Looked like they'd had a lot of rain, a precursor to Matthew.

The seas were getting rough but that didn't deter these fishermen or this pelican.

We drove through Camp LeJeune, a 246 sq mi Marine Corps training camp situated on quite pretty forested land. 

At one point we crossed over The Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) a 3,000-mile (4,800 km) inland waterway along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts of the United States, running from Boston, Massachusetts southward along the Atlantic Seaboard and around the southern tip of Florida, then following the Gulf Coast to Brownsville, Texas.

We had talked about doing a separate trip to Charleston, reputed to be the most beautiful of Southern cities, but hurricane Matthew flooded it so, instead of Charleston, we went to Wilmington.  Though not as spectacular as Charleston (from all accounts) it was definitely worth seeing.  Situated on the Cape Fear River, 

 Battleship North Carolina

Wilmington has an old downtown residential area with big, imposing southern mansions, Spanish moss, leafy, tree-lined streets, the whole Southern bit, and a gentrified commercial district near the river.  

We had lunch on the river, explored the old neighbourhoods a bit then headed home.