This new campground is run by the Forest Service. We were very pleasantly surprised to find paved campground roads and paved sites. The bathrooms are large with showers and a dishwashing room. The added benefit of this park is a warm spring pool. In a word, pristine. Our camp site is surrounded by tall pines and palmetto palms. There are lots of birds too.
Our first morning we awoke to 31 degrees! Ouch, we thought we were Florida not Maine. It did warm up into the 60's or high 50's and the day itself was beautiful with absolutely clear skies and only a light breeze. We got out for a walk on the Florida National Scenic Trail in the afternoon and it was really lovely. The entrance for us was right off the campground trail. This is quite a long trail and as we walked we saw where people had overnighted in the woods. Mostly a sandy trail sometimes with a little sugar sand (that's the deeper sand that is impossible to ride a bicycle through). We saw Scrub Jays and Red-Headed Woodpeckers, but not much else for birds and wildlife. Nonetheless, it was enjoyable.
This impressive sign was several miles from the entrance onto the trail. A little bit of a surprise to find it where we did!
Friday morning it was again 31 and time for us to put the heat on in the camper again.
Friday we got our kayaks up to the launch area and wheeled them nearly 400 meters along a raised board walk to the water. The campground provides "carriers" for canoes and kayaks, however, they are oversized and too wide and just didn't fit our boats at all. We managed though and even though there was a misfit, we were grateful for not having to carry the boats by hand.
This canoe/kayak run is ranked in the top 25 in the country by Reserve America (the reservation service used by national parks and other national facilities. We were looking forward to this activity which they said would be a 3.5 to 5 hour trip. For us it was just over 3 hours of banning our paddles into the overhanging vegetation, bumping into stuff because we just didn't get our boats oriented properly between one tight bend and the next. We had initially questioned the "intermediate" difficulty status the run was given but in the end agreed that it had been.
Below are some of our photos from the paddle.
The group shots were at the takeout point and the one below early in our paddle down the stream.
The number one wildlife creature we saw was the turtle! Lots and lots of them and some really big ones.
At times the stream opened up and we got lovely reflections of gnarled trees and overhanging vegetation.
Near the end of the paddle there were thistles growing near the water and the butterflies were very busy. Marty had to nose her kayak into the plants and fight the current to get the photo below.
We pulled our kayaks out of the water and checked our watches. We would have less than 15 minutes to wait for the shuttle to come and get Paul. The park service contracts out many of it's services and the canoe, kayak rental is one of them. Along with the rental comes a shuttle service that will pick you up at the end of the run. A nominal fee of $10.60 (per person) gets you returned to the parking lot where you can get your car or truck. We used only the transport service for Paul as we would then load up all four kayaks and make them ready for the return trip to Maine.
While waiting we chatted with a family from New Brunswick who said we should come to Canada and paddle in the ocean near their home! Who knows, we just might do that once day.
Our camping will now be limited to one more park with an overnight and then on to visit family and then home to Maine.
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