Cape Charles Natural Preserve

Board walk that leads to the bay view

The board walk that leads to the left

Not sure but this is what was next to one of the board walks

If you see this, you're in the right place. Just make a right onto this street and parking is straight ahead.

Fiddler fern from the sub tropics? So way out from its home

Sand crab

Janice T.

★★★☆☆

Oct 4, 2022

Round up to 3.5 starsIf you have to cross the CBBT like us and pay the hefty toll, I would tack on other places to check out while in Cape Charles. It's not an extensive area as I had thought with lots of access. I would say it would take 30 minutes to explore the area. Maybe 45 minutes to an hour if you just want to sit for a while and look at the overlooks from the boardwalk of the bay. The boardwalk to the right dead ends to the beach, and then if you back track there is another boardwalk that leads to another dead end that overlooks the woods with a partial view of the water. The trails to the right are shaded. But the ones to the left are more open but still surrounded by trees. There are three access points via the boardwalk on the left of the sign. If you have a wheelchair or knee scooter or stroller it may be better to access the boardwalk right in front of the Fuji film building since it's paved from the street. However the access point to the left from the park sign has a dirt path before you reach the boardwalk. All the boardwalks to the left do not connect directly to one another. One has to go to another dirt path to reach the other parts. Bring bug spray. The lot is small. There are two places where you can park. One is in front of the sign that can hold two cars and then adjacent to that a spot that can hold another two cars. It's a nice quiet tucked away area to take a short walk. We went across the street to see if there was more to it. We didn't think the area across the street is part of it, so we didn't head that way. It didn't seem to be a part of it? Not sure. Definitely don't go to the end of the street. We thought for sure it was part of the preserve, but there was a sign that was clearly marked PRIVATE PROPERTY no trespassing, so we turned around. We didn't see much wildlife at the preserve, except a ghost crab on the beach and one squirrel. Unfortunately, we ended up seeing a deceased fawn. :-( It looked like it had just recently passed away and was still intact.