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Manteo/Roanoke
Island
By Nancy and Richard Woodworth A couple of entries in the guest book at a Roanoke Island B&B are telling: "Reading the guidebooks in England, we planned a quiet two weeks looking at the wildlife of the Outer Banks. We were shocked to find the wildlife of Nags Head was the human variety." And another: "We planned a beach weekend, but exploring this wonderful island became our priority." This "wonderful island" is a new destination of choice for people in search of the Outer Banks of yore. Only lately being "discovered," Roanoke Island stands in contrast to much of the Outer Banks. The traditional simplicity of the famed barrier island off the coast of northeastern North Carolina, especially the busiest stretch between Nags Head and Kill Devil Hills, has been forever altered by commercial and residential development in the last decade. Sure, the extremities of the Outer Banks still have places for escape: The unspoiled southern stretches around Cape Hatteras and Ocracoke Island, if you can get to them. The luxury northern stretches around Duck, Sanderling and Corolla, if you can afford them. But for most of the annual six million visitors a year, the Outer Banks means days on the beach, evenings at miniature golf courses or bars, and nights in motels, condos or house shares. A change of pace is offered by Roanoke Island, a few miles back toward the mainland across a causeway from Nags Head and bordered by the Intracoastal Waterway. Here, on a more sheltered island twelve miles long and several miles wide, Sir Walter Raleigh’s party of adventurers founded the first English-speaking settlement in America in 1587 – before Jamestown and Plymouth Rock. The settlement mysteriously disappeared and is remembered as the lost colony. Historic Manteo (pronounced MAN-te-o) survives as the county seat and lately has blossomed as a waterfront resort of character. "This is quiet and quaint, a refuge amid the hustle and bustle," says Bebe Woody, a native and retired National Park Service ranger-turned-innkeeper on Roanoke Island. "We have retained what the Outer Banks has lost." People staying at her B&B or at others in Manteo can walk to three good restaurants and a 1950s-style theater showing movies for $3 a night. They wander the boardwalks around the waterfront and enjoy the new Roanoke Island Festival Park. They enjoy the famed outdoor pageant "The Lost Colony." They visit museums and formal English gardens. They bike or hike along a new six-mile bicycle trail from bridge to bridge or down to the sleepy fishing community of Wanchese. Just across the causeway lie Nags Head, the beaches, the national seashore and all the other attractions of the Outer Banks. Roanoke Island gives visitors a respite and a sampling of a vanishing way of life. Material excerpted from Inn Spots & Special Places in the Southeast, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth. Copyright 2000. Wood Pond Press E-mail feedback to: Home
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