Wild horses

It wasn't until we got to the Outer Banks that I found out that one of their unique points is the wild horses that live on the northern end of the islands. They are direct descendants of the horses brought over by the Spanish and are genetically unique. Of course we had to go on a tour to see them. We knew the only way to get up to where they live is in a 4X4 as where they are, is only accessible by driving down the beach, which is bizarrely officially an unpaved highway. 

We set off in our hummer which sat 13 plus the driver. It was fun speeding along the beach, there were more trucks and SUVs parked in the middle of the beach with families having fun on the beach. 

A selfi mirror! 

I had expected to see horses wandering through the dunes, what I didn't expect was a lot of houses out in the "wilds". This in a nutshell is what is wrong with the Outer Banks in my opinion, it is over developed. While it is a long strip of land, in places it is very narrow. You can literally be driving along the highway and out one side of the car see the ocean and out the other see the Sound. 

Back to the horses, we saw a group of four almost straight away, munching grass in someone's front garden. It is against the law to feed or get closer than 50 feet to them, so they are fearless of humans. There are only 110 or so left when there were hundreds only a centuary ago. But the numbers are slowly rising. 

We drove around for a while and spotted another stallion in another front garden. On the way back we found another walking along the beach. They are small, but they are horses not ponies. It was lovely to see them, but sad that their small bit of habitat is being developed, and the number of sites for sale was depressing. You can read more about them here http://www.ncwildhorses.com/