Oak Island Elks Lodge

We ended up on Oak Island, NC tonight, and decided to see if we could stay the night at the Elks lodge, number 2769.  What a friendly lodge!  We enjoyed a drink and shared an order of their homemade chips, and they were phenomenal!  I would definitely order them again!  The lodge is a block off the beach in a great location!  They have a wonderful second floor deck with a cool breeze and an ocean view.  They allowed us to stay over night in their parking lot.  There were no hookups, but a nice quiet spot away from the street. They didn’t have a set fee for the overnight  stay, so we gave them a $20 donation.  

The view from our van.  We were three rows back from the beach.  Not bad.

Carolina beach and Fort Fisher State Rec Area

 We got to Carolina Beach at lunch time.  Our first stop was Carolina Beach State Park, where we met some really nice ladies who were fishing near the marina.  We asked them for a seafood recommendation in town, and their first question back to me was…fried or fresh?  I was impressed that they thought to ask.  I told them that we would prefer fresh, and they recommended Michael”s Seafood. We shared a bowl of clam chowder and them each had a seafood roll (crab, scallops and fish) with a choice of sides, they were both so good!  We will definitely eat here again if we come back.

Then we headed to Fort Fisher State Park for a hike.  We started on the Basin Trail.  It was a beautiful swampy hike, and with swamps come mosquitoes.  Luckily, we had mosquito spray.  

The hike quickly left the forest swamp and ended up in the dry sand on the back side of the dunes from the beach  we decided we would rather walk the beach than the back side of the dunes, so we made our way back to the visitors center and a beautiful beach walk.

It’s

Fort Macon State Park, NC

Fort Macon was built during the Revolutionary war and used again during the Civil war.  It was designed and built by the French in 1862 as a means to help us win the Revolutionary War, but it became obsolete almost as quickly as it was built due to changes in the available artillery.  It has a very interesting history and is almost fully intact since no canons were ever able to fully breach its thick walls.  The French architecture is beautiful, and the once white walls are now beautifully distressed.  

Oyster Point Campground, Swansboro, NC

We found a wonderful campground, right on the bay in the outer banks of North Carolina.  Tonia, the camp host has been here for 20 years. This campground has 16 flat, well maintained sites for tents or small motor homes. There are two pit toilets, and water pumps around the campground, but no hookups at the sites.  The cell phone coverage is very good. There isn’t a lot to do at camp, but there is a lot to see in the area. Each site has a level tent pad, a picnic table and a fire ring with a grill. Sites 9 and 11 have a path to the bay. It is $10 per night, or $5 if you have the Carolina Pass.  There is a 14 day limit for your stay, and reservations can be made in advance.  We were here on September 25th, and the weather was perfect!  The gates are open from 6 am to 10 pm.