Holden Beach, North Carolina

We stopped at Holden Beach out of convenience as we'd done about as much driving as we wanted to that day.  It turned out to be one of the most stunning and relaxing places we've visited.

It's a small town and, living up to its name, is based right on the coast.  In fact, this was our view from the RV while we were there:

We started admiring the view as soon as we drove over the tall bridge that led onto the peninsula:

The main road that leads off the bridge and along the seafront is surrounded by rows of distinctive houses on stilts; clearly they anticipate regular flooding.

These houses come in all shapes and sizes, starting at roughly twice the size of the average 3-bed detached in the UK.  I guess they are mostly used as holiday homes.

We tortured ourselves for a while looking at the real estate website for that area.  I don't know what was worse, seeing that some of the properties were selling for $4 million and therefore likely to be out of our reach for a good while (at least until I win the Nobel prize, release a number 1 record and all the other things I've been lazily putting off for a while now), or that some of them weren't that much more than what we paid for our current home in Milton Keynes, UK.  I enjoy a roundabout and the occasional concrete cow as much as the next man, but views like this on your doorstep kind of make you question your judgement:

To console myself I got the BBQ out and starting cooking dinner.  Now anyone who knows me will understand how happy I was at this point:  beer in one hand, BBQ tongs in the other, slabs of meat ready to throw on there when it warmed up.  All that plus the sound of the sea in the background.

Unfortunately the bliss didn't last.  I tripped over one of the legs of the BBQ stand, sending a sausage flying into the sand and instantly summoning a flock of about 100 seagulls.  I picked up the food but as they started dive-bombing me like hungry kamikaze pilots, it became obvious that they'd never heard of the 2 second rule.

I defended myself with the pole we use to put up the awning, some of my most colourful language and a particularly vicious hornet spray that someone donated to us on our travels.  They eventually moved on, but not before spraying my shoulder with their own form of biological warfare.  I looked around afterwards and there was no evidence of any other "bombs" having been dropped, so I suppose you have to give them some credit for the accuracy of their aim.

Sharon didn't manage to take any photos of this, which I assumed was because she spent the whole time in fits of hysterics, trying not to rupture her spleen or something through laughter.  Afterwards though she said it was because I just looked too angry!

With the seagulls gone and the sandy sausage disposed of, I soon chilled out again and we eventually fell asleep to the sound of the waves lapping the beach in the background.