Montero Milestones: Labor Day on Padre Island

[Se7en62]

Here's a quick look at our Labor Day weekend exploring Padre Island National Seashore in our Montero. Padre Island is the world's longest barrier island and stretches 113 miles from near Mexico to Corpus Christi, Texas, but in the 1960's the federal government dredged a cut to Port Mansfield at the 60-mile marker which split the island in two. Roundtrip, we drove 510 miles on tarmac and racked up 120 miles of 4WD in the sand over 2 days to find the clearest water and most secluded beaches in Texas. You just have to have a 4x4 to access any of them and the Montero got us down and back with ease. - We also hit 200,000 miles on our way home!

Oh and the picture and video is on my GoPro, but we watched a couple fishermen bring in a 9' Tiger Shark at a spot only about 2 miles up the beach.

 

[Se7en62]

This is the route we took from Austin. Black designates pavement and red designates sand.

 

[Umbrarian]

This is my next trip in a few weeks. In for more pix and video.

Didn't know you could do fires on beach. I guess you bring your own wood, or did you grab driftwood?

Is the route you took faster than 10/37? Obviously the 130 to Seguin is better.

Nice looking rig.

 

[Se7en62]

This is my next trip in a few weeks. In for more pix and video.

Didn't know you could do fires on beach. I guess you bring your own wood, or did you grab driftwood?

Is the route you took faster than 10/37? Obviously the 130 to Seguin is better.

Nice looking rig.

Thank you. We had a really good time and want to go again before too long. We took the most direct route to get to the island, given we knew we had a lot of miles in the sand to cover and didn't know what the conditions would be and wanted to allow for extra time for extractions if needed. That route took us down the Toll-130 (since we live in Hutto) down to Lockhart and on from there. It was about 4-4.5 hours, then a 1 hour wait for the ferry in Aransas Pass. Had I not been showing my wife Port Aransas for the first time, I would have just taken the bridge and gone straight to PINS. - I'll share the Tiger Shark pictures shortly.

 

[Se7en62]

Here's the video of the Tiger Shark being caught. This was about 2 miles down current from where we camped. You don't want to swim in someone else's chum-slick. LOL.