Up early this morning for a drive down the Outer Banks of North Carolina and a stop at Kitty Hawk where the Wright Brothers did their thing.

They chose this location because of the sand, hills and reliable wind and actually at Kill Devil Hills rather than the nearby town of Kitty Hawk. The first photo shows how it looks today but the second is a better reputation of how it was then.

It was a fascinating place with so many interesting facts, but my top three were:

- Their path to solving the problems of flight began with their mother who was an accomplished mechanic and encouraged them dismantle and reassemble anything there was in their home – via a lucrative bicycle business in their home town of Dayton, Ohio.

- The first ‘flight’ was achieved in December 1903 and a piece of the fabric covering the wings of that plane was taken to the moon in 1969 on Apollo 11. A staggering achievement in only 66 years.

- The museum records many firsts in aviation including that of Albert Santos-Dumont who was the third man to achieve flight in a heavier-than-air machine and the first in Europe (1906). Sadly, he became so depressed by the use of aircraft in war that he committed suicide.

Nicks favourites:

- The brothers attributed their success to having deconstructed the problems of flight into lift, control and thrust and spent many months testing their theories with gliders and  wing-warping

- Who was to fly first was decided by the toss of a coin. Wilbur won but that flight was unsuccessful so 3 days later, Orville entered the history books.

- A local called John Daniels, one of many who helped the brothers, famously captured the moment on camera. Less well known is that during the 4^th flight of that day, the plane was caught by a gust of wind. By trying to hold the plane down, Daniels he got entangled in its wires and the minor cuts and bruises he sustained made him the first person to be injured in an aircraft accident!

There are life size bronzes depicting the event and the actual track along which the plane ran for the first flight outside and a fascinating museum with replicas of the plane

After the museum we continued down the Outer Banks past a couple of its famous black and white lighthouses – Brodie and Hatteras. Heavy rains had caused significant flooding so we couldn’t get to the Hatteras lighthouse, only play in the floodwater. It is this colour because of the tannins that leech out of the live oak trees and is considered to have antiseptic qualities. I did taste it – revolting!

The plan was to take the ferry back to the mainland at Hatteras but there had been heavy rains during the previous days and much of the road was washed away, covered in sand or flooded and the ferries cancelled.

We had to turn back rather than continue and made it to the border with South Carolina and this ridiculous Motel!