Wanderings and Side Trips travel blog

A Muskrat

Roseate Spoonbill, Snowy Egret and a Heron (I think)

Ducks

Baby muskrats

An empty oil tanker coming down the Intercoastal Channel

A snoozing duck

Malaquite Beach on Padre Island National Seashore

Each bird has his own post

Laughing Gulls with the dunes in the background

It was a good day for flying kites


We finally got an early start today - all of us! The guys have a favorite fishing spot for catching sheephead, but there is only room for one boat. Whenever they get there, it is always already occupied, so today, they decided to get up early and be the first ones in that spot. They were - and caught their limit on sheephead by about 10:30 am! Good job!

JoElla and I headed for the ferry and the Port Aransas Birding areas today. We couldn't find two of them, but the one we did find was great. It is located next to the water treatment plant with well landscaped areas and a great boardwalk and viewing tower. But best of all, there were tons of birds. There were suppposed to be two alligators here, but we did not see them. We did see lots of muskrats, and even two or three babies. There were lots of ducks, herons, egrets etc. and even one Roseate Spoonbill. We spent a couple of hours there.

Then we headed south on Padre Island to the National Seashore visitors center and beach. It is about a 20 mile drive from Port Aransas to the gate. This beach does have some improvements, but they have tried to leave it as natural as possible. The visitors center was small, but very nice and there is a little snack store/gift shop there too. The bathrooms are nice and clean and they have showers for washing off the sand - and for the campers too, I guess. We stamped our NP Passports and arrived on the beach just in time for a bird walk with one of the rangers. There were not many birds on the beach - mostly seagulls and others we had already seen. There were man-o-war jelly fish washed up on shore, but not as many as there are in December and January. We continued on after the bird walk and enjoyed just walking on the beach.

We ate our lunch and checked out the Malaquite Beach campground. Rustic, but right on the beach. I would love to bring our fifth wheel here for a few days, back it in with the view of the ocean out our big back window. I would be very happy for a few days. There is no electricity, but there is a dump station and a fresh water station. I believe the limit is 14 days. The big concern would be the damage to your rig from the salt spray and the blowing sand.

There is another campground/wind surfing area just up the road on the inside of the island. We checked it out also. I understand it is a fresh water lake, but not sure. Camping is rustic here also, but right on the water.

When we headed home, we got caught in some of the Spring Break Beach Party traffic, but none of the delays were long. In Port A, they had six or more ferries running, so that wait was not long either. We arrived home to find both guys suffering from the flu and ready for some TLC and bed.

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