(piano intro) - Next on North Carolina Weekend, join us as we celebrate the coast in Fall from Duck, North Carolina.

We'll visit a tiki bar at Carolina Beach, learn about whales in Beaufort, and we'll explore the charming town of Duck.

Coming up next.

- Funding for North Carolina Weekend is provided in part by Visit NC, dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history, and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains across the Piedmont to 300 miles of Barrier Island beaches, you're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.

(upbeat music) ♪ ♪ - Welcome to North Carolina Weekend, everyone.

I'm Deborah Holt Noel, and this week, we are celebrating the coast in Fall.

I'm on the Duck Town Boardwalk, a great way to explore this charming coastal town.

We'll learn more about Duck later in the show, but first, what's more fun than hanging out at a cool tiki bar on the beach while listening to live music?

Let's sample the vibe at Carolina Beach.

- The Ocean Grill and Tiki Bar is a full service restaurant, oceanfront, in Carolina Beach, North Carolina.

We are attached to an old fishing pier, center pier, and we have a tiki bar out there.

The restaurant literally sits just feet behind the sand dunes.

We have an upstairs dining room with a full view of the ocean and lots of original artwork and band posters by North Carolina artists.

And then downstairs, we have a small bar and a patio.

And then you walk out on the pier, and there's the tiki bar.

We decided to have live music in the very beginning, in the early 2000s, because we thought the end of the tiki bar would be a really unusual and really cool stage to host North Carolina bands.

My background is in film and TV production.

I worked in the set decorating department for many years.

Dave is a musician.

When I first met him, he invited me to his New Year's Eve show, and I was kind of blown away and very surprised.

We love to support North Carolina artists, musicians, painters, printmakers.

It's a very big part of who we are.

I spent a lot of time researching authentic tiki bar drinks and came up with a menu that made sure that we were a legitimate tiki bar, but kind of tweaked things a little bit with a nod to certain locations in Carolina Beach or Kure Beach, and also bands that play out here.

The Mummy is the traditional tiki bar drink that's got passion fruit, falernum, and the Mummy is one of Benji Hughes's songs, and he's one of our favorite North Carolina artists to play on the pier.

We have a great selection of fresh seafood and seafood entrees, sandwiches.

One of the guests' favorite sandwiches is something that Dave made based on one of his favorite sandwiches from his childhood in Kinston, and it's a pimento cheese and bologna sandwich.

Very North Carolina.

(seagulls cawing) (gentle music) ♪ (gentle music) ♪ ♪ Hey, have you ever tried ♪ - Our goal when we became owners at the Ocean Grill was to do something kind of unexpected.

As an oceanfront restaurant, you would assume that we would just be serving fried food and maybe have some beach music out on the pier, and we thought it would be really fun to have these summer series of live music with kind of unexpected acts.

- Abby and Dave have really curated the music here, and so they have really good bands.

You know, we've had great regional acts, but also national acts have come through at the Tiki Bar, including Yo La Tengo.

Cutworms played last summer.

- We've had a lot of great regional bands, like Benji Hughes, The Woggles were great a couple summers ago, The Shoal Diggers, Skylar Goudas.

- The most important thing is the bands have to be kind of fun, and they can appeal to any age group.

Younger people, someone's grandmother who's vacationing, she's still gonna get something out of the music and love it.

There's kids on the pier with their parents, but then there's also a massive beach party on the beach with families and kids running in and out of the water, and they can still hear the music down there.

- There's something really special about walking down the beach in a small coastal town in the South and just being able to hear, like, some of the best indie rock on a random Thursday night in the summer.

I remember when I was really young, seeing a band and the whole pier would just be shaking from all the people dancing.

I think that's when I really fell in love with music, so it's a really special thing that I got to grow up with.

- It's the best venue in the universe.

The sun's setting, you got a pina colada, the waves in the background.

If you hit a bad note, it just blows down the beach, nobody cares.

It's a great, great place.

[upbeat music] [crowd cheering] - The Ocean Grill and Tiki Bar is at 1211 South Lake Park Boulevard at Carolina Beach, and they're open daily.

To find out more, give them a call at 910-707-0049 or go online to OceanGrillTiki.com.

- On to the next page.

- Jennie Kuhn likes to take her kids on the Story Walk Trail at Martin Marietta Park in New Bern.

- This one said, "I had just grabbed the doorknob when I felt another sneeze coming on.

I huffed and I snuffed and I tried to cover my mouth, but I sneezed a great sneeze."

- The friends at the New Bern Public Library installed signs on the trail, each one telling a different part of a story.

- And you're not going to believe it, but this guy's house fell down, just like his brother's.

So we get out and away from our phones.

That's probably the best experience, and, you know, we get to spend quality time together.

We normally make a morning of it, and it's really a fun time.

We normally will come out here, we're at least an hour, maybe two, depending on the weather.

[bicycle riding] - While Jennie and the kids are on the Story Walk Trail, her partner Eric is riding his mountain bike on the seven miles of park trails.

- It gives you a nice place to ride, good views.

[bicycle riding] The paths are pretty wide, so that's good.

You know, there's always a lot of people walking, fishing.

[water splashing] - Mike Murrie comes to the park to paddle with fellow members of the Twin Rivers Paddle Club.

- It's calming.

I really like the wildlife.

Today we have a lot of turtles around.

You never know what you're going to run into.

This park has two places to put a kayak in.

One goes to our area streams, and then the other one is this lake, which is a nice paddle in itself.

It's nicely protected.

It's a nice paddle just to go around the circumference.

It's a long enough lake that we could do that.

We really enjoy getting together here and doing what we call rescue practice when we practice special maneuvers like rolling or climbing back into the kayak.

[water splashing] - The city had over 800 acres of land set aside and started developing the park in 2017 after Martin Marietta Corporation donated another 55.

- It was actually a limestone quarry, which is what Martin Marietta Corporation used it for, and they were done mining it.

They really had no more use for the land.

- Phase one of the park opened in 2022 with the trails, an adventure playground, picnic shelters that can be reserved for special gatherings, fishing piers and wildlife observation decks, and restrooms.

More amenities are coming in future phases.

- This park offers something for all ages, and I want them to come out here and embrace that fully.

- For all the amenities the city provides, perhaps the best ones are provided by nature.

- There are certain areas of the park you can go to, and you're completely surrounded by dragonflies, and it's just an unbelievable experience.

- Ready to act like a wolf doing a happy dance?

On to the next page.

Where's your happy dance?

It's so relaxing, so I work in IT.

I love to come out, disconnect, put my phone away.

I'm off the laptops, and I enjoy the scenery.

The park is really wonderful.

It's well-maintained.

It's got different options.

Every time I come out here, it's a little bit different.

- Martin Marietta Park is at 700 South Glenburnie Road in New Bern, and they're open daily.

Admission is free.

To find out more, visit their website at newbernnc.gov.

- The waters off our coast are teeming with wildlife, from birds, fish, dolphins, even whales.

That's what producer Seraphim Smith discovered when he was exploring Beaufort and came across the Bonehenge Whale Center.

- Recently, my friends invited me to sink my teeth into the Bonehenge Whale Center in Beaufort.

It's a multifunctional workshop for research, exhibit preparation, and hands-on education.

- For about the last 35 years, my wife and I and veterinarians and volunteers have been the North Carolina Marine Mammal Stranding Network.

We get the calls of dead, dying, and tangled marine mammals, and that's where these skeletons came from.

- An impressive amount of data is collected.

- I have five pages like this of data on this one whale.

- Wow.

- She was known when she was alive.

Her mother is known.

A little bit about her travel and associations is known.

And we have the entire skeleton, and a terrific necropsy was done, which determined the cause of death.

So we saved this skeleton to tell that story, and now we have this building in which to tell the story and display her.

- Let's head off by learning about the skull.

- Nostril is huge, and the right one is tiny, and the bones are shoved to the left.

That's predictable.

It's consistent.

The fetuses have it.

The calves have it.

Deeper divers have more asymmetrical skulls than shallow divers, and we don't know why.

And this is the fatty melon tissue.

- It's like a digestive system.

- It is, except it's spiral-shaped, and it has something to do with manipulating sound.

- Wow.

- And these people are starting to think that this is used for sound production, and this is used for respiration.

And these ear bones are positioned where these megaphones of a lower jaw open up.

So hold this.

Hold it, usually I put it in both ears and do the scratchy thing.

- Oh my goodness.

- Isn't that amazing?

- It's amazing.

- Wow, that's amazing.

- I want you to hold that.

Look at that polished surface and sort of wiggle it around.

- Oh.

- That's what I want you to see.

- Lines of a tree.

- Yes, like rings of a tree.

- Rings of a tree.

- Can you see them?

- Yeah, we think each line corresponds with a year of growth.

- It follows this.

- Yes, yes.

- However, some whales are toothless.

- They lack teeth, 'cause they are baleen whales.

- Baleen functions like a big water filter made of keratin, the stuff of our fingernails.

- Oh, look at this.

I always wondered where they were located.

- It's just in the upper jaw.

And inside the lower jaw and the throat is literally tons of water and terrified fish.

And the water gets out and the fish stay in.

- Wow, look at that.

- Plastic of the day.

Corsets stays, buggy whips, umbrella spreaders.

It takes a jaw-dropping amount of support from donors and volunteers to make Bonehenge happen.

My pal, Vic, is one such volunteer.

- This is when I first met Keith, and he said, "Hey, we're going out "and we're gonna dig up this whale's head.

"Do you wanna go?"

I was like, "Yeah, of course I wanna go."

Right, why wouldn't I?

And then he said, "Yeah, "but you're probably gonna have to throw your clothes away "when you're done."

- Tours are "orca-strated" by appointment only.

So make sure to "tail" them that you're coming.

This heart-touching experience is for people aged 14 and over.

I can't wait to come back and learn more.

- Bonehenge Whale Center is at 275 West Beaufort Road Extension in Beaufort.

It's important to plan your visit ahead of time by calling 252-528-8607, or go to their website at bonehenge.org to learn more.

- Duck sits on the northern end of the Outer Banks.

On the southern end near Cape Hatteras is the town of Buxton, and an eatery that is beloved by locals and tourists alike.

Let's learn more about the Orange Blossom Bakery and Cafe.

- We have a beautiful island here that attracts everybody with its beaches and its fishing, but we also have some pretty amazing food and people here on the island.

The Orange Blossom is part of the core of that.

- I've been coming to Orange Blossom about 15 years, and it's well-visited.

- Well, it started out as the Orange Blossom Motel, and rumor was that they had orange trees on the property at the time, and that's why it was named that.

And then in the '70s, it was converted to the Orange Blossom Bakery.

We bought the Orange Blossom, my wife and I. It's kind of funny to watch people come in the door and with the display case and everything sitting around here, trays and trays of Apple Uglies, their eyes kind of get big and glaze over.

- The Apple Ugly is what they are known for.

- Well, the texture is light and fluffy, like a donut and pastry, but then you've got the baked apple in there, and then just all this, the crunchy sugar on the outside.

It's just, oh, so good.

- They're ugly, yeah.

You rip them apart and eat them like that.

It's great.

An Apple Ugly is kind of like an apple turnover, but huge, and you can only eat them by pulling them all apart, which of course makes them ugly.

- Oh, look at that.

- Oh, good.

- Oh, yeah.

- You'd be a hand bottle.

- Did you handle a Viking like a champ?

That's the Apple.

- It's great.

Apple Uglies are awesome.

- Yeah.

- So good.

- I can have this?

- Yes.

Look at all those apples.

It's stuffed like a conch shell.

- Like a conch shell.

- It's a little up to your ear.

It's in your ear, though.

(laughing) - Our apples, we have two different kinds of apples that we bring in.

We have sliced apples and diced apples that we bring in.

It's a great big, huge apple fritter that when we're done, we dip in donut glaze.

And that's our most famous product.

As the lore goes from Doris, they had leftover donut mix and dough.

And instead of throwing it away, one of their friends said, "Hey, why don't you take it and do this?

"Let's twist it all up, make it real ugly, "put the rest of the apples inside of it, "and let's fry it, and whoa, hold on a second.

"Let's dip it in donut glaze now that it's done."

And thus became the Apple Ugly.

And here we are, 50 some odd years later, still making Apple Uglies and making a lot more Apple Uglies than they used to make.

We have cheese danishes, we have turnovers, and we also have handmade pies that were started maybe 10 or 12 years ago.

They're kind of like an Apple Ugly, but in pie format.

And we have a variety of fillings for those.

- We usually just pick up Apple Uglies, but this time he actually picked up a sandwich and decided to dive all in with the Buxton this time.

♪ - I'm trying to do well for the people that started the bakery and the Apple Ugly.

Doris and Alan Oakham.

Alan passed away before I was around and bought the place, but Doris Oakham, bless her soul, she was alive for probably the first 15 years of my ownership here, and living in various retirement communities.

And once she was in a retirement community up here in Norfolk, I would take Apple Uglies up to her on a regular basis there on my way to Ocean City and stop in and see her in the retirement home.

And that was a treat for her.

You can see the sparkle in her eyes.

She was very excited to get bags of Apple Uglies and distribute them in the cafeteria there at her retirement community.

Unfortunately, she passed away a couple of years ago.

I took Apple Uglies to her funeral, which was only appropriate.

And I think we may have even slid some into the hearse with her when she was on her last trip there.

(laughs) So that was very special to me.

And I'm trying to carry on that tradition.

- Orange Blossom Bakery and Cafe is at 47206 North Carolina Highway 12 in Buxton.

And they're open daily from 6:30 AM to 11 AM.

They do have winter hours.

So to find out more, visit them on Facebook.

- The boardwalk here at Duck is such a fun place to walk, but this town has a lot more to show than just a boardwalk.

So we asked producer Clay Johnson to take us on a tour.

(waves crashing) (seagulls cawing) - Here, days start with sunrise over the ocean and they end with sunset over the sound.

The town of Duck is tucked in between.

- Duck's a naturally beautiful place.

As one of our friends put it, it's a little slice of paradise.

- I like to go to the beach.

That seems like a given, but it is so beautiful year round, just walking and enjoying the water.

- We took our first vacation here.

We got engaged here.

We got married here.

And this was all while we lived in Pittsburgh.

Every trip, Kim would say, "We should really move here.

Wouldn't it be great if we could live here?"

Once we both became remote workers during COVID, it became, you know, not just a dream, but an actual possibility.

- The Foremans bought a house here and moved with their daughter, Scarlett.

Now they both work from their new home in Duck.

- It's not precisely true that you get to live on vacation, but a lot of your free time is a lot like vacation.

- I love the community aspect of it.

I think it's a small community, but it's a tight-knit community.

Everybody is so friendly.

I like going into town and walking around and doing a lot of, like, local shopping in town 'cause they have such unique stores.

- We know most of the shop owners at this point.

We're friends with several of them, so it's just really cool being in town and walking around and shopping and seeing friendly faces.

- Almost the entire village is independent, locally-owned businesses.

- Including Duck's Cottage Coffee and Books.

It's in one of Duck's oldest buildings.

It was built in 1921 as a waterfront hunting lodge where the duck being hunted were tied to the town's name.

- You have a good day.

- The building was moved inland toward the town center and in 2002 became this coffee shop.

- Anything you can imagine with coffee.

- With pastries to go with it.

There's merch like hats and mugs, tees and totes.

And there are books, too, of course.

- We carry several thousand titles, a lot by North Carolina authors, New York Times bestsellers, local authors, kids' books.

- It's also just a gathering place for both locals and visitors.

- We just like to think that we're the happiest place in Duck.

- Anderson says the town's pedestrian and bike-friendly nature is good for business.

- If you stay right across the street or within a half mile of Duck, you can literally park your car and never get in your car again.

You could ride your bike, you could walk.

- Being able to park your car and just walk all throughout Duck is something that we're really proud to offer.

- A mile-long boardwalk along the Sound connects many of the town's shops to each other and connects to some restaurants, too.

- Unlike any other place on the Outer Banks, Duck is uniquely cottage-like walking community and lots of great food and a lot of cutting-edge, fine coastal cuisine.

- Wes Stepp is both chef and owner of two restaurants in Duck.

At both, he's all about locally sourced food.

- We're blessed to be on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

You can't get any greater seafood in the entire world.

Not only that, but you got great agriculture all around the Outer Banks.

And my mantra is, the first bite's taken with your eyes, and then when you taste it, it sparks that feeling of, "I'm home."

- His Red Sky Casual Dining and Cocktails puts a twist on healthy eating.

- So it's more Southern contemporary, but in a new, different, and unique style.

- His signature dish there is the Redneck Risotto.

- So the Redneck starts with the stone-ground grits.

The risotto is how I prepare it.

North Carolina green-tail shrimp served with a Cajun cream, real light, and a fresh pico at the end.

- Step's NC Coast Bar and Grill is on the waterfront with outdoor and indoor seating.

It also serves locally sourced fare, but with an international flair.

Its signature dish is a shareable called the Chef's Board.

- So it's got everything from local oysters topped with pimento cheese, crab cakes, pork shanks, fresh fish of the day, a little lobster on top of that, ribeye, local tuna, scallops.

- Stepp says with every dish, customers get a dash of Southern hospitality.

- It's not just an experience of great food.

We want them to really enjoy themselves and know that they're not only welcomed, but we're really happy they're here.

- All right, you got a dozen donuts, kiddos.

Anything else?

- The original Duck Donuts opened here in 2006.

Now there are 150 across the US and another 50 international stores.

- Here, we don't make the first donut until you actually come in and tell us what donuts you wanna make.

You start with the cake donut.

You pick a coating of your choice, a topping of your choice, and then a drizzle of your choice.

- You get to watch your donuts being made and then they're served up warm.

- The donuts are delicious, but it's also a cool experience for our kids to get to watch the donuts being made.

Duck's become one of our favorite family vacation destinations, and the trip's not complete without multiple trips to Duck Donuts.

- I like the dough, it's really good and it's fresh off the baker, so it's like really, really good.

- I love all of them, but I mostly like the cookie crumble.

- People love the sound.

(waves crashing) (seagulls cawing) People love the scene and the feeling.

- It's like nowhere else in the Outer Banks.

- I think it is one of the most beautiful places on the East Coast, if not in the whole country.

I mean, this was an amazing decision to move here.

Absolutely, no regrets.

- To learn more about Duck, visit ducknc.gov.

- I'm at the amphitheater just off the Duck Boardwalk, and it is the home of the annual Duck Jazz Festival, a great celebration of music.

That's it for tonight's show.

We have had such a wonderful time exploring the Duck Boardwalk and bringing you these fall stories.

If you ever have a chance to visit Duck, we hope that you will.

And if you've missed anything in tonight's show, just remember you can always watch us again online at pbsnc.org, and you can find all of our stories on our YouTube channel.

Have a great North Carolina weekend, everyone.

(upbeat music) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - Funding for North Carolina Weekend is provided in part by VisitNC, dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history, and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains across the Piedmont to 300 miles of Barrier Island beaches, you're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.

(piano outro)