Road Trip Week Minus 1

24th April 2019

Writing this on the plane bound from Washington DC to Chicago, Ill. having spent nearly a week with my daughter, Emma, on the magical island of Chincoteague on the Eastern Shores of Virginia, a 3.5hour drive from DC via US95, US 50 and US13. Turn off US13 at Chincoteague Road in Oak Hall and head east.

Within the first few miles, you will spot signs for “NASA” and the vast satellite dishes that sprout out of the fields. You are approaching Wallop Island, from which the “Antares” rockets are launched carrying the Cygnus spacecraft to resupply the orbiting International Space Station. There is a small museum which is worth a visit and a nature trail which leads to the waterside from which a good view of the launch area can be seen. The airfield in the area is also used by the military as a training base for pilots operating from aircraft carriers, each pilot requiring three thousand “touch-and-go” manoeuvres to qualify.

Separated from the mainland by an inland waterway, you approach the island across a long causeway, opened in 1922, flanked by miles of marshland alive with birds.  There are few pull-offs, which is frustrating for the queues of drivers behind me driving at 15 mph, but there is a boat ramp on the east bound lane and a couple of laybys on the west, from which can be seen ibis, both white and glossy, oystercatcher, laughing gull, great and snowy egret, Forster’s terns and the occasional bald eagle.  

The causeway ends at a crossroads. Turn left and you meander along the shore past scattered residences and the High School until you reach a dead end.  The High School hosts the annual Duck Decoy and Craft festival over the Easter weekend. Chincoteague lies on the Eastern flyway, the corridor through which thousands of migrating birds pass on their way to and from their winter roosts in the south. Many duck, geese and waders spend the winter on the Islands, which are relatively temperate. Duck hunting is still big business during the open season in winter and the waterways are lined with curious straw duck-blinds, which also provide ideal nesting places for ospreys in summer. The wooden, floating duck decoys, carved and painted to represent the various target species, were used to entice overflying wildfowl to land, the decoys promising a safe and abundant food source. You could then blast them out of the skies with ease. Duck Decoy Competitions are held up and down the East coast and the Craft fair is a showcase for this extraordinary American art form, where the best sell for thousands of dollars. A single block of wood is used to form the body, the head usually being carved separately and attached.  Some carvers delineate each feather by careful shaving of the surface of the block, to give a realistic texture, before painting the plumage of the species represented. A single duck can take more than forty hours of carving. There is also a display of other crafts!

Turn right at the crossroads, and you are in Main Street, the heart of the resident community, which numbers around 3000 but swells to ten times that during the summer months. It is this street which captures the essence of this extraordinary place.  There are two larger chain motels and or you can enjoy bed-and-breakfast in one of the older private cottages, including “Miss Molly’s” where Marguerite Henry wrote the children’s classic “Misty of Chincoteague”. There is a gas-station, and a US Post Office which is far too large, surely, for this tiny community.  There is a gourmet food store, selling international imports and local produce, but no supermarket. There is a library, and an excellent book-shop selling both new and second-hand books, as well as art-prints, in a vast labyrinth that spreads over two floors. The Island Roxy cinema opens on Fridays out of season and weekends at other times – but check.  Try their freshly popped corn. This Easter they showed “Fly Away Home”, and the following Friday “Saturday Night Fever”, in an eclectic mix of popular classics. There are three restaurants: Bill’s, an upscale, traditional American restaurant with the emphasis on surf and turf, which is full at 5.30pm and empty by 7.30pm (the Chihuly chandelier is a reproduction); Don’s, which is more casual and has an upstairs bar with live music and The Ropewalk which is modern American, with cocktails, and has a prime waterfront location from which you can watch the stunning sunsets. The remaining buildings house a variety of craft shops, of which the Flying Fish is the best and features local and national artists.

Continue straight ahead and you are in the seaside resort, lined with budget motels, surf shops and take-outs. The best of these are the Island Creamery, which has a permanent queue out the door, and Poseidon’s Pantry, which specialises in gourmet foods and takeaway deli sandwiches. Further east, if Woody’s BBQ is open, it is worth a stop. Keep going and you reach the bridge that links the Island to the Assateague NWR – 55 miles of barrier island stretching north into Maryland, with acres of marshland and pine forests, the famous wild ponies, the distinctive red-and-white lighthouse, and miles of unspoilt sandy beaches.   Beavers arrow through the water-filled ditches and, if you are lucky, you may spot the endemic, and endangered, Delmarva squirrel, a variant of the Eastern Fox squirrel with silver fur.

There are a variety of walking and hiking trails and a driveable wildlife loop where you pass a bald eagles’ nest. During migration and in summer, the myrtle bushes are full of warblers and large flocks of waders skein overhead. You may see the snouts of turtles poking out of the water or find them lined up, in size order, on a sunny, half-submerged log.

To get close to the ponies, take a boat trip, as boats can access areas of the island off-limits to the public and the ponies often graze on the marshes close to the water. 

The ponies are owned by the volunteer Fire Company. The most popular time of year for visitors is the last week in July, when the wild ponies are rounded up, swum across the narrow channel from Assateague to Chincoteague and the foals sold at auction. This raises funds for the Fire Service and keeps the population to around 150, as limited by the NWRS. Accommodation for this period needs to be booked months in advance.

Chincoteague is a magical place, worth visiting at any time of the year to watch the changing landscape and wildlife.