Biking: Assateague Island
We loaded our our bikes on the back of the car and headed down the eastern shore of Maryland, hoping to enjoy this clear spring day. Following the directions in our tourbook, we ended up at Assateague Island National Seashore just south of Ocean City. Assateague is an undeveloped barrier island on the Maryland-Virginia line, known for it’s wild ponies which migrate annually back and forth to Chincoteague Island. The story of the ponies was made famous by Marguerite Henry in her children’s books, the Misty of Chincoteague series.
We parked the car at the Vistors center and made our way with our bikes over the new arched walking bridge to the island. Our first stop was the Ranger’s Station, where we paid our day fee and received our bicycle permits. The bikes are restricted to the paved roads, but Trailwalker insisted on walking her bike to the beach, at least for a picture.
The park’s small size doesn’t provide much of a bike ride, but there are other things to enjoy. Besides the beach, we rode among the campsites on the inland bayside of the island, still deserted this early in the year. The only company we had were the numerous deer which grazed quietly, totally oblivious to our presence. We also took a walk around the nature trail. This foot trail winds through a swamp back to a raised deck overlooking the sand plain, where we could see Assateague’s most famous residents, the wild ponies, in the distance.
Back on our bikes, we rode northward. Although the island is totally flat, the prevailing winds make pedaling markedly more difficult in one direction than the other. At the north end of the island is a Maryland State Park with a public swim beach, which was naturally deserted on this day as well.
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