The South Carolina coastline is a land of secrets: salt marshes, palmetto forests, empty beaches and a surprising history. Steph Davies explores the region she learned to love through the books of best-selling American author Pat Conroy.

Off the beaten path, between the grand southern belles of Savannah and Charleston, lies a hundred miles of South Carolina coastline known as the Lowcountry. Over seventy sea-islands are laced together by a tracery of bridges and causeways, and the main road is a two-lane country highway to nowhere, skipping from island to island until it reaches the Atlantic. Few travellers along nearby Interstate 95 hurrying down from the northern cities to Florida take the turn-off.

The unhurried, lonely geography of this place is the vivid backdrop for the works of writer Pat Conroy, sixty this year. His classic, "The Prince of Tides", published 1987, is a huge sweep of a story rooted in these islands, covering forty years of family troubles and secrets set among the shrimpers.

Leaving the Interstate behind me, I drove for twenty miles along Route 17 through groves of cabbage palms and oak alleys, heading to the sea. Wild jasmine and rampant honeysuckle grew in tangles at the side of the road, and beyond I could see a maze of freshwater streams and tidal creeks weave round marshy islands. Wooded hummock islets fringed by waving cord-grass dotted the flat landscape.

At the heart of the lowcountry, on Port Royal Island, I found the serene little port city of Beaufort (say B'yew-fert), known as the queen of the sea islands. Beaufort’s history has been defined by the waterways surrounding it – the first bridge linking Port Royal island to the mainland wasn’t built until 1907.

Inaccessible to all but the most determined visitor, the area was originally inhabited by the Yemassee Indians, and then fought over by successive waves of settlers from the sea: Spanish, French, Scots and finally English.

After the War of Independence, Beaufordians became rich cultivating rice, indigo and cotton on sea island slave plantations. The town itself grew because of an accident of geography: fresh breezes from the Atlantic which made this area of all the lowcountry tolerable for the rich planter families in summer. And those summer breezes produced the distinctive Beaufort architecture, modified from the Palladian style - white-painted elevated frame houses, with two airy storeys of wrap-around porticos, always south-facing to catch the cooling winds. The entire downtown area of Beaufort is a designated historic district.

Most of the houses are private homes, but the John Mark Verdier House on Bay Street has been restored by the Historic Beaufort Foundation, and is open to the public.

Kathleen’s Grille on the waterfront, with natural air-conditioning courtesy of the Atlantic, provided me with my first taste of lowcountry cooking – southern fried oysters, fried green tomatoes and hushpuppies – not the suede shoes but a spicy battered cylinder of dough - deep fried, of course.

Later I took a tour in an open carriage pulled by a huge, retired Amish work-horse from Ohio called Gilbert. There’s nothing pretentious or grandiose about Beaufort: gracious is an overused word, but nothing else quite conveys the mixture of quiet charm and slightly faded elegance of its narrow streets of colonnaded antebellum homes. We clopped slowly through canopies of oak trees draped with wispy beards of spanish moss. Tour guide Peter White explained the surprising history of this handsome old town, flicking his reins lazily to keep Gilbert moving along the dusty lanes.

Beaufort, renamed Colleton in Conroy’s novel, is unique - a southern city with a clear conscience in the Civil War. Although this is where the deed of secession was first drafted, and the first shots were fired only 50 miles away at Fort Sumpter, Civil War history hangs lightly here. The southern plantation owners fled overnight, and Union troops occupied the deserted city and used it as a headquarters and hospital zone. General Sherman thought of Beaufort as northern ground, not southern, and so it escaped the battles, burning and destruction that engulfed the rest of the South.

And it was in Beaufort that the Proclamation of Emancipation first applied in 1863, and the first slaves were freed. So many Union soldiers settled in Beaufort that even today, 70% of Beaufordians are descendents of those northern incomers. This quintessentially southern town is in fact a singular fusion of cultures.

From Beaufort, I continued east on Highway 21, over low bridges, passing expanses of sawgrass and marsh, to the tiny community of Frogmore, where the Gullah culture and language brought over from Africa by the slaves 300 years ago is still alive. As the road wound its way to the ocean, distant shrimp-boats with their nets folded like giant grasshoppers appeared moored in the middle of a field. When I drew closer I saw mud-banks and the silvery thread of a tiny saltwater creek.

Almost the last of the stepping-stone islands, Hunting Island is a state park, complete with boardwalks through the marsh. Its magnificent white sand beach is fringed with palmetto forests, and I wandered among the spectral shapes of bleached trees fallen on the sand where the sea had undermined their roots. The restless ocean reclaims ten feet of shore each year, and in return washes hundreds and thousands of perfect shells onto the beach.

A snowy egret was guarding the little bridge between Hunting Island and Fripp, where the road ends and I was to spend the night. Perched at eye level on the fretwork in the centre of the bridge, it gazed unconcerned as the cars clattered past. Later, sitting on a boat-dock, back to the ocean, I watched a stunning sunset over the salt-water lagoon before strolling back to my lodgings. Pat Conroy, now in his 60^th year, lives and writes here on his beloved Fripp Island, a gated community served by the one bridge. They say he often swims in the ocean early and late in the day, and from his waterside home watches osprey fish in his backyard.

Lingering over coffee on my oceanfront verandah the next morning I looked for Pat Conroy, but instead spotted dolphins swimming past not twenty feet away, and so was tardy leaving to meet Kim Gundler of Beaufort Kayak Tours. It is impossible to hurry here: the low bridges are raised for the shrimpers to chug slowly past in the morning and late afternoon. Narrow dirt roads led me to a secluded jetty where Kim waited to reveal some more of the lowcountry’s secrets. "To really know the lowcountry you must take to the water, as the locals do," she told me.

Kayaking is a growing sport here, for both the experienced and novice. The lowcountry offers ocean, saltwater tidal marshes, freshwater rivers, streams and tributaries and swamps. Even guided historic tours of Beaufort by water are available. Kim reassured me that no kayaking experience was necessary, and even a middle-aged tyro with a dicky back like me would have no trouble.

An alligator slipped silently into the creek ahead of us as we set off. For ninety minutes we paddled upstream through sawgrass and copses of loblolly pines, accompanied only by blue heron, the wildlife of the marsh waters, and bald eagles circling high above. Huge cypress trees cradled osprey nests. Kim pointed out remnants of the plantation past in the abandoned rice-fields. When we turned around, the paddling was easier as the tide was with us. I felt perfectly safe and stable even when we startled another gator, who splashed noisily into the water nearby. "They’re basically shy creatures," Kim stated.

After the morning’s exercise, I stopped for a late lunch at the Shrimp Shack on St Helena’s Island. It doesn’t look much from the outside but has a legendary reputation among the locals. Hilda Gay Upton and Martha Jenkins opened the Shack in 1978: the shrimp are caught and landed daily by the Gay Shrimp Company across the road, owned by Hilda’s husband Bob. I paid for my meal and took a number, waiting on a screened porch overlooking the tidal marshes. When they arrived, freshly cooked, the shrimp-burgers were delicious and creamy, served with hushpuppies and fried fingers of sweet potato.

As I drove off Fripp Island for the last time the next morning the snowy egret had taken up position again on the bridge, and it eyed me beadily barely twelve inches from the car window. Back in the shady streets of Beaufort I stopped off in Blackstone’s Café for a final breakfast of stone-ground grits and shrimp omelet. The grits were a new experience, tasting exactly like porridge with – well – gritty bits. They serve breakfast here until 2.30 in the afternoon. Now that’s what I call slow, southern style, and one day I’ll return to this southern town with its northern soul. I’ll rent a house on the beach at Fripp Island, walk in the surf at sunrise, and write a book. And maybe I’ll even get to meet Pat Conroy.

Beaufort is an hour’s drive from Savannah or Charleston regional airports which can be reached from the UK through various US hubs.

There are many Bed & Breakfast choices in Beaufort. For elegance, try The Rhett House Inn (1009 Craven Street, 001-843-524-9030, www.rhetthouseinn.com, £90-£200 p.n). The Best Western Sea Island Inn ( 1015 Bay Street, 001-843-522-2090, www.sea-island-inn.com, £55-£90 p.n) is a budget option in the historic district, across from the waterfront.

There are no hotels or B&Bs on Fripp Island, but villas and apartments can be rented from their private owners (www.frippislandresort.com).

For breakfast: Blackstone's Café (205 Scott Street, 001-843-524-4330, www.blackstonescafe.com)
For shrimp: The Shrimp Shack (1925 Sea Island Parkway, 001-843-838-2962)

For waterfront dining: Kathleen's Grille (822 Bay Street, 001-843-524-2500)

Steph Davies is a freelance writer currently working on her first novel.

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1600 words - copyright Stephani Davies 2005

This article is not to be reproduced in part or in full without my express, written permission and agreed payment.

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