You pull off Woodard Road and stop at the edge of the Cashie River. The ferry is on the far bank, so you tap the horn once, the old signal. After a minute the barge pulls away from the far shore and starts across, and you watch the cable lift out of the tea-colored water as it comes.
A crossing that’s been here longer than the state
Some kind of ferry has crossed the Cashie at Sans Souci since the early 1800s. The state took over the route in the 1930s, and NCDOT still runs it today, which makes it one of only three cable ferries left in North Carolina. The other two are Parker’s Ferry on the Meherrin River in Hertford County and the Elwell Ferry on the Cape Fear River in Bladen County.
The mechanics haven’t changed much. A steel cable stretches across the river, secured to posts on each bank. The barge rides that cable with rollers, and the current does the steering. There are no brakes and no wheel on board; the operator works the throttle of the John Deere diesel and knows when to let off. The ferry carries two cars, the ride takes about five minutes, and it’s free.
The hours are posted at the landing: 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the warm months, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the winter. High water or a storm shuts it down, because a swollen Cashie can snap the cable.
Why there’s no bridge (and why that’s a good thing)
People have wondered for years whether the state would build a bridge here. NCDOT’s answer has been consistent: no. Both ends of the crossing are unpaved roads, and the traffic counts are too low to justify the cost of a bridge plus the paving it would require. So the ferry stays, and the crossing stays part of the local rhythm instead of becoming a four-lane afterthought.
That rhythm almost broke in 2020. Budget cuts tied to COVID-19 suspended the crossing in June of that year, and Bertie County pushed hard to get it back. The ferry returned to service later that August, after a yearlong overhaul the year before had rebuilt the gear house and brought the vessel, which dates to the 1970s, back to shape.
What the ferry means for buyers
For a buyer looking at land on the south side of the Cashie, the ferry is part of the daily math. Cross it and you’re back in Windsor in a few minutes; drive around the river and you’re adding roughly twenty miles to the trip. Property on the Woodard Road side isn’t cut off from town, it’s just a short ride across the water, when the ferry is running.
The landing is also public access. The Sans Souci Ferry Boating Access Area, off Woodard Road, has a single-lane ramp, a courtesy dock, and trailer parking. That matters for buyers who want river access without paying riverfront prices: you can launch a boat or a kayak here and work the Cashie without owning a foot of shoreline.
The honest trade-off: this is a working farm-road crossing, not a commuter ferry. The roads on both ends are unpaved, service pauses in high water and bad weather, and you plan your crossing around the posted hours. If you need to be on the other side at 6:45 a.m. in January, you’ll be driving around.
The Bottom Line
Most of the state’s river crossings are bridges now, and you drive over them without thinking about it. The Sans Souci is the other kind: a five-minute ride that has been part of this county’s daily life for two centuries and still runs free. For people looking at Bertie, it’s a reminder that this part of the state still works the old way, and for buyers south of the river, it’s a real route, not a museum piece. You learn its hours like you learn the tide.
