South Carolina

  Georgetown, South Carolina, United States
Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Well, tonight we are in Georgetown, about 50 miles north of Charleston in South Carolina - the 10th state we have visited so far!
Georgetown is on the coast and has a steel factory (not sure where the iron ore comes) and a paper mill which uses timber from surrounding regions - not a very big place though.
This morning we took a look around the histroical precinct of Savannah, which comprises about 150 blocks of the city, so it is a fairly large area. We caught a horse drawn carriage tour and spent an hour doing the circuit with a good commentary telling us the landmarks. There is just so much history attached to these southern cities, both from the slavery era and then the Civil War.
The precinct was filled with extremely old bulidings from the late 1700's and beautiful little squares filled with trees and gardens.
         
         
We left there at about 11.30am and drove the 90 odd miles to Charleston where we had a bite of lunch then took a bus tour of the historic area. This tour was 90 minutes long and the driver was a mine of information, rattling off dates, facts and figures at will. Some of the houses dated back to early 1700's which when you think of it was before Australia was even settled!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Charleston has a confluence of two large rivers and the natural harbour formed was the scene of many battles during the Civil War and we were shown many, many points of interest. 
                                             
Both tours were just so good and were worth every cent of the $20 per person we paid, there was no way we good have found out all the history without a proper guide.
It was well after 4pm before we got away and so we only drove the short way to Georgetown before stopping for the night.
We took a walk along the marina just along from our hotel and saw some magnificent big boats which fish off the coast from here.