Port Aransas Beach

We decided to break up the drive to South Padre Island with a stop at Port Aransas Beach. I had heard quite a bit about camping on the beach from travellers in a FaceBook group. 

We selected a route from Galveston that avoided major highways. We travelled through miles of rice farmland. Texas produces 7% of the rice grown in the US. We also passed through areas where they were preparing the land for cotton. They use a piece of equipment called a hipper that creates ridges to plant the cotton. 

The area is also home to many petrochemical refineries. At one point, there was a huge cloud visible on the horizon. It looked quite ominous and I wouldn’t want to live near there. 

We had to take a short ferry ride over to Port Aransas Beach. These ferries that we have been on are free and efficient with a number of ferries at each roof. We saw dolphins playing in the water. 

The beach road is very hard packed sand and you can camp for free for 3 nights in a 3 week period. All you need is a $12 parking permit that is good for a year. The roadway/camping area is separated from the beach by a row of bollards (new word for me too) a series of vertical posts. A stretch of those posts were decorated with knitted or crocheted decorations. 

The beach stretches for miles and is easy to walk as the sand is so hard packed. The waves were fascinating to watch but with a riptide warning, no one was in the water. We did spend a lot of time watching the ships come in and out of the port. Lawrie has an app on his phone that identifies ships in any location worldwide. The app includes stats on the ships as well as their destination. 

During the night the wind intensified. The sand was drifting around the motorhome like snow. We took the Jeep for a drive, and just walking to the car, our faces were being exfoliated by the sand. Near the port sea wall we watched a number of kite surfers. Some of them were getting 25 feet in the air when they jumped. 

The beach was very clean and there were portajohns and garbage containers conveniently placed along the beach. and we would definitely come back here.