Virginia is known throughout the scooter world as one of the country’s great places to ride. This usually speaks to the Blue Ridge Mountains and foothills, valleys, and trails on either side. However, we are also blessed with the rich terrain of the Chesapeake and all its rivers and tributaries feeding into it. In particular, the Northern neck area offers some truly wonderful roads to explore. The Northern Neck, north of the Rappahannock River, covers the counties of Westmoreland, Richmond (not the city), Northumberland, Lancaster, and includes King George county, billed as the "Gateway to Historic Northern Neck." Some of the towns to visit are White Stone, Kilmarnock, Burgess, Montross, and Warsaw. The Northern Neck has over 300 years of history, access to the Potomac, Rappahannock, and Chesapeake Bay, with rural and waterfront living that's close to Washington, DC, Northern Virginia, Fredericksburg, and Richmond. The beautiful and peaceful Northern Neck has something of interest to offer everyone, whether you're looking for history, boating, seafood, or fishing – and now, motorcycling!

Back in early November, Roger (a friend) and I, in attempting to get in one more day of the beautiful fall foliage, discovered the pretty towns and roads over by Gloucester and Matthews on our way down to New Point Comfort and the historic lighthouse. My parents had often told me of this place from when they lived in Virginia back in the 40s. Anyway, on our way back, we decided to venture up into the Northern Neck and take this little cable-ferry from Merry Point across one of the serene tributaries on the Rappahannock river. A modern day cable-ferry (motorized) is not much different from the old fashioned pole-ferrys, of which Virginia believe it or not still has one in operation. It was a beautiful ride on this very small ferry that can hold only two cars. On the south side, our options for getting back home to Richmond were limited to one -- taking another pretty road up through Warsaw and then over to busy town of Tappahannock on the Rappahannock.

Several days later, Roger called me and said he had found another “free” ferry in the same general vicinity and that we ought to plan a two-ferry ride sometime in the Spring. I agreed and put this in my mental storage file for safe keeping. Fast forward now to the Christmas holidays. I am at work on a VERY SLOW Friday after Christmas and decide that it’s been almost two weeks since my last ride. A quick check of the Chapter schedule revealed nothing planned. Another quick check of the weather for Saturday showed somewhat promising conditions of partly sunny, and 50 degrees. But the problem presented was “where to go?” The mountains are really too chilly this time of the year. Recently, we had been concentrating on the Farmville, Blackstone, and Lake Anna areas – so, on a whim I decided to do an exploratory ride in searching out this second small ferry in putting together the Spring Two-Ferry ride. Well, most of the maps at my disposal did not show this second ferry. But, a call to Roger helped in isolating it to at least the Northern Neck. So, I went online and using several map locators, I was able to find it up close to Smith Point by the small town of Ophelia. However, one of the maps showed the crossing as a bridge, and not a ferry. Oh well – we would just have to go see. I put the word out to our e-mail coordinator for a short notice ride hoping to lure a few more folks experiencing PMS (parked motorcycle syndrome).

(continued below)

By J Beery on Monday, December 31, 2001 - 12:56 pm:

Saturday morning was moderately cold and cloudy and didn’t seem to be living up to my published forecast for this ride. This obviously had a big impact, because only four bikes showed up. We wound our way up through West Point, Saluda, Urbanna, and then crossed over the Rappahannock into White Stone. By this time (12 noon), the sun had broken out warming things up and believe it or not, for the next 3 ½ hours, there was not a cloud in the sky! I had planned a diversion out to Windmill Point – just so that I could say that I’ve been there. It too is a pretty ride as you wind your way out on this narrow peninsula with the Chesapeake all around you. We then got back on track and headed north up to Burgess and looked for a place to eat. You know, it is quite amazing how we always seem to stumble onto new, great, eating places, and Rosie’s Restaurant was true to form. Several of us commented that Rosie’s had the absolute very best hamburgers ever eaten in a restaurant.

In our first trip on the Merry Point ferry, we discovered that we just happened to cross the ferry in the correct direction in-so-far-as parking the bikes. The reason is that this ferry was so small that the engine compartment, being off to one side, puts a pretty hefty tilt on the ferry. Had we crossed going the other way, it is doubtful that the bikes would have rested securely. In routing the trip for the second ferry, and not knowing anything about it – not even knowing if it WAS indeed a ferry – I decided to approach it from the same direction as the Merry Point Ferry. As it turned out, this was a wise decision as the Sunnybank Ferry was a sister boat to the Merrypoint Ferry. (I would venture to say they were bought at the same time by VDOT.)

The country roads leading up to it and the crossing itself was equally as nice as Merry Point, which once back on hard surface, became our next destination. During this crossing, Roger commented about how fortunate we were by having this wonderful day of riding some truly beautiful roads, finding a great new place to eat, AND two boat trips thrown in for extra measure! This ride is a definite “keeper”, and we can only imagine how wonderful it will be in the spring with azaleas and honeysuckle bursting out everywhere.

For any of you that may consider riding in Virginia, AND if you want something a little different from the mountains, keep the Northern Neck as an option.

DB

By John Bell on Monday, December 31, 2001 - 02:30 pm:

Sounds like a great ride, but I'm disapointed, From the subject line I thought your were anouncing a new mini-rally. I was checking it out to see if it fit into a free weekend for us.
Doesn't sound like it would work out too well as a rally, 200 bikes would make for a very long line at the ferry. Almost like being at Disney (grin).

By Brian Downing on Wednesday, January 02, 2002 - 01:24 pm:

Hey thanks for the tip, I ride down to the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area fairly frequently. The Northern neck is a truly beautiful place to ride. Now I can take in some ferries to.
Brian..

By Ken Breen on Thursday, January 03, 2002 - 08:38 am:

Chapter C has a Fall Sprawl on Simon's Farm outside of Kilmarnock around the middle of September. They've got ride sheets that will get you on the ferries. Camping is free and they feed you well.