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Stroll the attractions at the newly opened Kure waterfront beach park.
(Photo: Courtesy of Wilmington and Beaches CVB) |
After immersing yourself in history, spend a day exploring North Carolina’s famed coast on Pleasure Island, a sandy sliver of land between the Atlantic and the Cape Fear River, 25 minutes outside of Wilmington. Begin your morning with a country-ham biscuit ($2.95) at the waterfront Gulfstream Restaurant overlooking the Carolina Beach yacht basin. Drive five minutes across the island to Carolina Beach State Park, home to a host of unique carnivorous plants, such as pitcher plants, sundews, and the iconic Venus flytrap. Just outside the park entrance, stop in for a free tour and tasting at the ale-focused Good Hops Brewing, which opened last spring; order the S19 Smoked Ale, made with cherrywood-smoked malt ($5). For lunch, order the cornmeal-coated, Calabash-style fried flounder ($10) at Ocean Grill and Tiki Bar, which sits between the dunes and the Atlantic. Just a five-minute drive down oceanfront Route 421, stroll the Kure Beach Ocean Front Park, which opened last April. Continue south along Route 421 and stop into the Civil War–era Fort Fisher State Historic Site, which successfully kept Wilmington’s port open to supply-carrying blockade runners until the very end of the war. When it fell in January 1865, the Confederacy was defeated just a few months later. Three minutes down the road, the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher ($11) includes a new butterfly house, a shark touch tank, and an albino alligator. Head back north on Route 421 toward your home base in Wilmington and stop into Jack Mackerel’s Island Grill in Kure Beach for Caribbean-inspired fare such as jerk chicken ($19) or honey-mango-glazed grouper ($23).