USA Road Trip - Day 7 (Charleston, South Carolina)

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We had the usual buffet fare for breakfast and then headed into downtown Charleston across the Ashley River bridge. We had a walking tour booked with Tommy Dew starting at 11am so we had a little bit of time to kill so we headed south towards the end of the peninsula and Murray Boulevard where the quality of homes overlooking Charleston Harbour were amazing. Just house after house was in immaculate condition with beautiful gardens. We would find out later these homes whilst looking old are in the newer section of town built on reclaimed land but still over 100 years old. We got to the area known as The Battery that looks out to the Atlantic Ocean where you can see the famous Fort Sumter and headed up East Bay Street where the buildings just got older and we saw some cobble stoned streets. Next we found the Historic City Markets and decided to park our car nearby where all the Horse & Carriage rides were departing from. We paid $12- for all day parking in this lot. We headed across to the markets where we wandered through a few stalls and found some nice jewellery items and the all-important licence plate for the Bali Hut, but at $12.95 I decided it was best to look around. We only saw a small section of the markets and would head back there again later. We walked towards the exit at Meeting Street end because our walking tour was to start at the corner of Market & Meeting Streets at the foot of the steps of the old Confederate Museum. I had a visual of what the steps of the museum looked like but as we exited the markets I looked around the intersection but as I did a 360 degree turn nothing looked familiar at all. But what I did not realise was that the markets are actually built under the museum so when we exited we were actually standing right underneath the stairs of the museum. Silly me ! Soon Tommy Dew arrived and we joined his tour of about 15. Unlike Savannah this was private and paid tour which cost $25- each and he had great reviews on Trip Advisor so we though it would be good. He went around and introduced himself to everyone and when he met us he said he had been to Australia back in 1985 but did not go the Gold Coast, but just to the two main cities being Sydney and Port Macquarie. WHAT Port Macquarie ? Where Kerry’s brother David and wife Annette live as well and my sister Karen and her family live, really ! Turns out Tommy went there for a kangaroo hunting expedition with a friend of his. He mentioned our tour would go for about 2 hours and would only cover 1mile such was the close density of the historical areas we would see. He mentioned how low the city is and that with as the harbour is so tidal that parts of the city flood up to 20 times a year especially on high tide and when it rains. He took us to see a couple of old churches and then on to see some other historic landmarks such as the Dock Street Theatre (America’s first theatre) and Rainbow Row a beautiful series of terrace homes in different colours. The city was founded in 1670 when the Brits arrived and was originally called Charles Town after the King at the time. The city would be famous for it’s battles in the American Revolution around 1780, and later in 1861 the American Civil War started in Charleston when the Confederates fired onto Fort Sumter in the harbor held by the Northern based Unionists. The architecture in this city is breathtaking and it is so clean and friendly. Tommy seem to know everyone who walked past us and there always a polite hello. He said it was illegal here to honk your horn except for emergency (and the police enforce that), and it is ranked as America’s friendliest city. The tour ended near the battery area on the harbor front where it was quite cool. The temperature today was around 17 degrees but near the water with the wind up it felt lot cooler but not a cloud in the sky again. We headed back towards the city markets along the waterfront, and found a nice old English Pub called The Griffin where we had some Pea & Ham soup for lunch and the walls were covered by 1 dollar bills everywhere. We then headed back to the markets where I found my licence plate for only $8.95 (a bargain) and went into the Well Fargo bank so use ATM (and got stung $5-00 transaction fee !). Then went back to our car and drove off to Patriots Point Museum across the famous Arthur Ravenel Jr Bridge which was only built in 2005 over the Cooper River. The bridge looks amazing and is the 3^rd longest cable bridge in the western hemisphere. Patriots Point was amazing. It is a military museum that houses an old WW2 destroyer battleship which we could walk through, and a WW2 Aircraft Carrier the USS Yorktown. The aircraft carrier had 3500 crew on board when it was working and was huge. It kept around 100 different types of aircraft on board. They also had a submarine which we did not have time to see and an excellent Vietnam War display. We left right on closing time at 6.30pm back over the bridge to Charleston and back to the same car park in downtown as before (we kept our prepaid ticket) and had dinner at Tbonz Gill & Grill. We shared some chicken fried strips for an appetizer, Kerry had half a rack of pork ribs for main and I had steak burger. No alcohol tonight (how disciplined are we ?). Could not get back into Hotel as cards failed to work, but fixed by reception soon enough. All in all a pretty long day. We are feeling tired but off tomorrow up Highway # 17 along the Carolina Atlantic coastline where we will be entering new USA State # 2 in North Carolina, via Myrtle Beach where our final destination will be Wilmington.

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Photos

Charleston Mansions
These are single houses. Wow !

Maverick Spanner
Sitting in cockpit of F9F Cougar fighter jet

United States Customs House
I think the declaration for Independence was signed in many places including here.