Assateague Island National Seashore

Saturday, April 14th

A beautiful sunny day with temps in the 70s. We left NJ and headed to Maryland. A lovely drive down to the coast mostly off-highway on Route 1 and then 113. We crossed over the Verrazano Bridge (not that Verrazano Bridge), arrived on the island and immediately saw wild horses by the side of the road grazing with people taking pictures. Since we were towing and had to check into the National Park Campground, I let the picture taking pass for the time being. There are signs everywhere telling you to keep your distance that the horses are not pets, they are wild and will behave that way. And under no circumstances are you allowed to feed them. As they put it “a fed horse, is a dead horse.” They don’t mince words.

Our campsite is on the bayside of the island. We had a spacious site with a gorgeous view overlooking the bay. When we were checking in the ranger said, “oh you have a nice site.” That was thanks to Gary’s research and picking us a good one. It was a back-in site which we handled beautifully. If only we could be consistent about it. Ah well, we’ll get there. This was another opportunity to practice some dry camping since there were no hookups.

The downside of all the wild horses running around loose is that there is horse poop everywhere. Since Kya reacts to horse poop the same way she reacts to goose poop, we decided she would be on a short leash for this stay. We’d have to watch her like a hawk to be sure she behaved herself and didn’t feast without our knowledge.

Assateague Island is 37 miles long and is a barrier island. On the Maryland side of the island, they have between 80 and 100 horses that roam free. They are considered “wildlife” so there is no human intervention i.e. no feeding and no veterinary care. The only “intervention” is that the mares are shot with a dart once a year that contains a vaccine that keeps them sterile for a 12-month period. They get this when they’re 2, 3, and 4 years old. Then they are allowed to have one foal before they are vaccinated again. It’s to keep the horse population under control and healthy. The Assateague horses have been here for 300 years and were put here on the island by the colonists as a way to not pay taxes on them. In 1965 it became a national park. The horses are of a shorter stature than typical horses. They tend to look bloated (fat bellies) because they drink twice as much water as most horses due to their food (grazing) being found in the salt marshes.

The horses on the Virginia side of the island are on Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge. They have about 150 horses that are owned by the Volunteer Fire Department. They keep their horses in very large penned in areas, rather than allowing them to roam free. There supposedly is a dividing fence between the Virginia and Maryland side of the island so the horses can’t co-mingle. Then in July they do a horse round-up that includes a pony swim and they auction off the foals to help raise funds to manage the herd.

Saturday afternoon was gorgeous so we sat outside and enjoyed the view, and walked around the campground, which was quite nice. The winds picked up big time during the evening. We ended up having to have “white noise” i.e. music going to try and get to sleep because the wind was so loud.

Sunday, April 15th

Rain was expected but not until the afternoon so after breakfast, we headed out to explore the rest of Assateague Island. There are bike trails, three nature trails, and the ocean across from the bay with several beaches. It was cloudy, markedly cooler than the day before (temps in the mid 40’s, compared to the 60’s from Saturday) and incredibly windy. Plus there was a fog bank. We walked on the beach, watched a kite surfer doing his thing for awhile (he was absolutely flying across the water), saw some interesting driftwood and checked out the campsites on the ocean side of the island. We also visited the visitor’s center, which was quite nice and full of information about the horses. You can’t drive from the Maryland side of the island to the Virginia side of the island. Basically the road stops after the beaches and you enter a “OSV” zone, Over Sand Vehicle which requires a special permit.

The only other way to get to the Virginia side of the island is to go off-island. It’s a 50 mile ride through pasture land etc. That’s on the agenda for tomorrow. Rains kicked in big time so we headed back to our little home to crash for the rest of the afternoon.

We didn’t see any horses until early afternoon. Apparently they weren’t too keen on the cooler, windy weather either. But we did see several foraging for food by the salt marshes. Plus we saw a deer, several bunnies and several pairs of cardinals by our site.

Since we are dry camping, we don’t have access to the normal TV channels, but we brought movies with us so we watched 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea tonight. Hadn’t seen it in years, but thoroughly enjoyed it.

Monday, April 16th

It absolutely poured during the night and very windy conditions again, which kept me awake part of the night. We woke up to the marsh lands having expanded a bit on to our site.  Gary had just headed out to walk Kya and I was washing a few dishes left over from the night before when he came back in and said there were several horses in the campground. I ran out to look and they scampered off but then came back to hang out at our site grazing on the marsh lands. So cool!  We watched them for a long time and Kya finally figured out what was going on and she was watching from one of the inside windows. There were four of them. One was a baby. This is the advantage of being in a campground, over a hotel. For moments like this!  So special!  We ended up eating our cereal and watching the last straggler of the horses eating his breakfast at the same time.

After a fun morning of watching the horses, we headed off to Chincoteague on the Virgina side.  It was a pretty ride over on a scenic byway through lots of pasture land. We tried to go on the Wildlife Refuge but couldn’t because we had Kya with us. They don’t even let a dog be in the car. That seemed a bit mean spirited. So we bagged going to the wildlife refuge and did a nature trail instead that Kya was allowed on. Visited their “historic” downtown which was probably a nicer way of putting it than “dumpy.” And, saw a whole row of older homes across the street from the waterfront with a whole row of docks on the side of the waterfront. There must of been 20 long docks all lined up. Not a boat in sight, but it is still pretty cold, so maybe that’s why. We found a local restaurant to have lunch at and then meandered back over to the Assateague side of the island. Just as we were coming back across the island, we saw six horses on the side of the road grazing. I went for one final walk on one of the nature trails over in Assateague. The whole trail is on a raised boardwalk overlooking the marshland. Very pretty.

That concluded our visit to Assateague. We would totally come back here again, and we’d probably stick with coming either in the spring or fall.  We think summer would be very busy and kind of crazy. This time of year it’s virtually empty except when it gets busier over the weekend.  You do have the vagaries of the spring weather with wind, rain, and varying temps but still worth it in our opinion!

Tomorrow it’s on to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.