Nature seems to have a prescient notion that development will eventually obliterate her handiwork, so she tries to preserve some of her best efforts, sometimes by tucking them off in remote corners of the globe. We discovered some evidence of Nature as protector of her marvels on our journey down the Delmarva Peninsula for a long anticipated 60th birthday party for an old friend, who is himself an extant marvel of nature. He is in the eternal process of remodeling and reconditioning a large Victorian house he and his wife bought in a speck of a village called Willis Wharf, Va.

Our long day's journey took us from Fairfax County, Va., across the towering, four-mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge, east along Route 50 through a good swath of Maryland's Eastern Shore, (explored extensively in James Michener's “Chesapeake”), then south along Route 13, the spine of the peninsula that sits between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic.

Delmarva countryside is reminiscent of the Low Countries, Belgium and Holland, (no picturesque windmills, however) - with broad, sweeping arable flatlands tilled and furrowed and very green, the horizon seemingly a short drive away. One- and two-story farmhouses dot the land, and in the towns along the route, many with European names like Cambridge, Oxford, Vienna, and Salisbury, no building rises more than three stories. Even church spires come up short in a land where the ever-present white-flowered crepe myrtle trees, “the lilacs of the south,” can be mistaken for large bushes. This is a hunkering-down land, low and long. But never monotonous.

After about three and a half hours on the road, we crossed the Maryland state line back into Virginia, first into Accomac County and then Northampton County, together a 70-mile stretch of narrowing land bounded by the Chesapeake Bay and Pocomoke Sound to the west and the barrier islands and Atlantic Ocean to the east -- and isolated from the rest of the Old Dominion like the last two prisoners on Devil's Island.

Accomack County is the site of the Assateague Island National Seashore and the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, home of the famous Chincoteague ponies, which are rounded up the last Wednesday and Thursday in July, herded to swim onto the mainland at low tide and sold at public auction to raise money for local charities. The ponies are reputed to be descendants of mustangs who escaped a shipwreck in the 16th century, but the roundup dates back only to 1925. The refuge, designed to conserve the plants and animals that inhabit the 37-mile-long barrier island, also houses the Refuge Waterfowl Museum, which features exhibits of boats, traps and carved waterfowl. A local irony we noticed is that its popularity with wild waterfowl is matched by its growing poultry processing industry. Tysons and Perdue are both well represented with large plants throughout the peninsula. (Perdue has its name on the recently built minor league baseball at Salisbury, Md.)

Chincoteague pony swim

Our favorite stop was Onancock, a tiny village on the leeward side that is nevertheless the second largest community on Virginia's Eastern Shore. Onancock means "Foggy Place" in some lost Indian dialect, and archeological digs have shown that, indeed, there was an Indian settlement nearby. According to the guidebooks, in 1680, the Virginia Assembly authorized the creation of a port town in each county, and in Accomack County the chosen site was on Onancock Creek. Thus, Port Scarburgh was born, named for Charles Scarburgh from whom the land was purchased. In time Port Scarburgh became known as Onancock, “flourishing now,” the guidebook puts it, for more than 300 years.

“Flourishing” is a tourism guidebook exaggeration. With a population of 1,455, Onancock is slowly attempting to refashion itself into a small version of one of those tony summer resort towns, with a few interesting restaurants, specialty boutiques like the North Street Market, and of course antique shops filled with discarded furniture, dishware and a few galleons' worth of nautical knickknacks. We enjoyed a filling Italian lunch at Stella's restaurant before perusing the antique shops across the street.

Onancock is also home to a young theater company composed of local players. The lobby doubles as an art gallery for resident painters and sculptors. It is from Onancock's deep water pier that you can reach Tangier Island, discovered by Captain John Smith in 1608, settled in 1686, and used by the British Navy as a stopover for troops on their way to attack Baltimore's Fort McHenry that launched the War of 1812 and inspired Maryland native Francis Scott Key to pen the words to what is now our National Anthem.

Tangier Island

The Barrier Islands that separate the lower peninsula from the Atlantic are a birder's paradise. Some 40,000 acres of various habitats - tidal marshes, sandy beaches, dunes and patches of pine - are spring and autumn migration rest stops. One birder's guide informs the knowledgeable that “Waterfowl are abundant throughout the winter months and there's always a chance to come across a rare Skua, Auk or vagrant Sandhill Crane.” There's a birding festival every October, at the peak of the fall migration.

Just north of Exmore, we cross into Northampton, the southernmost tip of the peninsula and the poorest county in Virginia. From there you can continue on to Norfolk and Virginia Beach back on the mainland via the 17.6-mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. First settled in 1614 by Englishman Thomas Savage, whose descendants can still be found among its 209 square miles, Northampton's extensive saltwater marshes are an ideal venue for crabbing, shell fishing, deep-sea fishing and bird watching. The county also claims the oldest continuous court records in the country, housed in the Eastville Courthouse and dating back to 1632.

Great egret in marsh

When we see the popular Mexican restaurant El Maguy in Exmore, we hang a left and head to Willis Wharf (population 300) on Parting Creek. The village is named after a 19th century crabber named Willis, but most of it belonged or still does belong to the Ballard family, whose name adorns one of the main roads through the village, the local B&B, the Ballard House; a small town park; and, if you can find them in antique shops, the Ballard Company tin cans that once held oysters and clams, the town's main canning business. Willis Wharf was a deepwater port during the 18th and 19th centuries, and is still a haven for watermen, its major products being clams, scallops and oysters. (Grape tomatoes grow in abundance there too.) Capt. Ken Marshall's Salt Marsh Tours takes visitors on two-hour or half-day birding and Barrier Island boating tours. In Exmore, you can custom tour the area through Broadwater Bay Ecotours with Capt. Rick Kellam, naturalist and author as your guide.

A recent Willis Wharf “town vision” plan acknowledges that the seafood industry has been in decline in recent decades. But in the past several years some local watermen have begun "aquaculture" businesses in which they raise small clams in indoor tanks, "plant" them in the clean waters around Parting Creek, which affords the proper environmental conditions, and then "harvest" them at maturity. Most aquaculture practitioners are happy to give visitors tours of their facilities. The Nature Conservancy has become a major landowner, due to the ecological value and quality of the natural systems there, and is working with local leaders to further develop compatible businesses such as clam aquaculture.

Those plans seem to be working, albeit slowly like most things in Willis Wharf. We met one transplanted Long Island fisherman who'd left New York a number of years ago when the fishing industry there was in deep doldrums and he is now happily plying the waters around Willis Wharf. And doing very nicely too. Others have come to the village from far afield. Like the original settlers of the peninsula, the proprietress of the Ballard House B&B hails from England. She's recently put the large Victorian house up for sale, hoping to use the money to buy the E. Willis Wharf Country Store and Restaurant, the town's lone eatery (but open only for lunch on weekdays) and make it her home, putting an end to any indigenous attempt at haute cuisine. Our birthday friend is of two minds about her plans. He enjoys walking to the restaurant for an excellent mid-day meal; on the other hand, an inveterate antique maven, he has his eyes on a couple of late 19th century ceiling fans he'd like to acquire when she buys the building and auctions its furnishings.

As with most things in laconic Willis Wharf, time, and tides, will tell.