Ellen and Sally Birdwalk. Speedy moves to a new site. Steve & Ellen visit Kingsley Plantation. A day trip to the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve. We leave Florida.
Tuesday morning was a sunny, but cool, morning (we were now in northern Florida and it is decidedly cooler at night). I went along with Ellen and Sally on a portion of their morning bird walk. They went along the trail that runs through the woods on the ocean side ouf the park then back along the beach. Unlike Ellen's usual morning power walks, their bird walks are at a much slower pace. When they had only covered the first mile of the trail in an hour, I headed back as we were to change campsites this morning. They returned much later having had a pretty successful walk.
Meanwhile, I went back to the campground. In order to put together three days in a row at Little Talbot Island, we had to make two separate reservations in two different sites. Our new site, Site 32, was an improvement over Monday night's site. It is more open and had a view of the marsh and Myrtle Creek. By the time I got back to the campground, the previous occupants had left, so I moved Speedy, got it leveled, reattached power and rode up to the ranger station to check into the new site. It was done by the time Ellen and Sally returned, just in time for lunch (even these intrepid birders always seem to make it back by lunch time).
After lunch, Ellen and I took out the bicycles and rode along A1A to Fort George Island. There is a National Park Service site there, Kingsley Plantation, part of the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve. It was about six miles into the wind, the last two of which were unpaved, but it was worthwhile. Kingsley Plantation is situated on the Fort George River and was originally all of Fort George Isle. The plantation dates from about 1765, when it produced indigo, but gets its name from the family of Zephaniah Kingsley, who moved to it in 1814 and purchased it in 1817 to grow sea island cotton.
Kingsley was an Englishman in Spanish Florida. He started as a slave trader, but became a successful plantation owner, eventually owning several totaling over 32,000 acres in Florida. Interestingly, he married an African woman, whom he had originally purchased as a slave and had several children by her. Since Florida was part of Spain, they were all free and had the rights given all residents. Once Florida was annexed by the US, things changed. Although Kingsley's wife and children were free blacks, the Florida legislature passed increasingly harsh laws affecting all blacks. They were so restrictive that his wife and children moved to Haiti, where she ran a plantation there.
Only the main house and kitchen remain intact of the original plantation. There is also a tabby (oyster shell based concrete) barn and the foundations and some of the walls of the slave quarters (just because he had an african wife and mulatto children didn't mean that he didn't have slaves). The house and kitchen were used through the 1930's as a private club, which is why they are still intact, although the house is undergoing restoration. The house is only open on the weekends, so the only building we were able to see was the kitchen.
It was a down wind ride back to Little Talbot Island SP, so we were back in plenty of time for afternoon showers and dinner with Harry & Sally.
It rained overnight, but was clearing by Wednesday morning. Today was a day for a trip to the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve (GTMNERR) located about 35 miles south. Ellen and I passed it during my ride south on the leg from Hanna Park to Anastasia State Park. It is in two parts, a northern section above St. Augustine and a southern part south of the city. We were heading to the northern part. The northern GTMNERR consists of about a ten mile strip running north to south and from east offshore on the Atlantic coast to the Intracoastal Waterway on the west. There is a large estuary, the Guana River between the coast and the waterway.
On the bike trip trip south we had noticed an enormous number of birds on the estuary, so on this trip we had intended to drive down, park in one of the lots, set up the spotting scope and watch for a while. It didn't quite work out that way.
When we got there the wind was blowing quite hard and the northern end of the estuary, which was teeming the last time, was devoid of birdlife. We decided to go a bit further south to the estuary dam and visitor center, to see what was there. It turned out that this was the start of a network of trails through the GTMNERR which went through forest and passed marshes and ponds and the estuary lake. We walked about three miles, a mere fraction of the trails, and Ellen and Sally had one of their most productive birding days since the Everglades. In fact, they probably saw more species than in any single day there.
Harry walked part of the trail, but headed back to the dam to try his hand at fishing. The dam was a supposed hotspot, at least according to the folks fishing there when we arrived. It was not a hotspot today. They weren't catching anything...and neither did Harry. When we returned there was no fresh fish for lunch, so it was the usual sandwiches.
After lunch we drove north to the top end of the reserve, which is a Florida Wildlife Management Area. There is a trail head there with more trails and a viewing blind at one of the ponds. I think we were a bit too late in the day. It was a four mile round trip to the blind for Ellen, Sally and I and there was only a single egret to be seen. We were back to the vans before sunset, where Harry was waiting, with only the egret, a couple of warblers and a hermit thrush in the birder's logs.
It was back to Little Talbot. We managed to make it to the next to last ferry from Mayport, just at sunset. It was dark by the time we got to Fort George Island and we decided to stop for dinner at the Sand Dollar, the only place in town. It was actually pretty good. Ellen and I had oysters and Harry and Sally had two different Grouper dinners. Their fish was a bit better than our oysters, but it was a good, although a bit pricey, dinner. We got back to the campground well after dark.
This morning, Thursday, it was time to continue our trek north, destination Skidaway Island State Park, just outside of Savannah, Georgia. We got a slow start after breakfasting and packing up. Originally, we had planned to go up to I-95 and drive straight to Savannah then to the park. We ended up meandering a bit, going up through Amelia Island and then over to US-17 and then stayed on it all the way, almost to Savannnah, then to Skidaway Island. We stopped only for gas and a bit of grocery shopping arriving in time for a slightly late lunch.
We are sharing a site with Harry and Sally again. When I made reservations, there was only one site left in the park for Saturday night, so I called the park and asked if two campervans could share a site since the sites are all sized for a 50 foot+ RV. They said it would be no problem...at least until we got here. The rangers in the office were a bit surprised when we showed up with two Roadtreks. The official rules are one RV + one auto + one tent. They said that I should have seen this online. I hadn't, which is why I called (and I looked again and still only saw that two vehicles per site was all that was indicated). But since we had gotten the okay when we called, they allowed us to register. We'll be here until Sunday—but we should know better next time!
The afternoon was spent doing a massive amount of laundry. Actually, Ellen spent the afternoon doing laundry. I set up the van. Since it was going to be cold this evening, we decided to have dinner in Speedy, so we took apart the bed to make it into a (tight) dining area for four. We grilled outside and a good meal was had by all.
Tomorrow we see what is happening at Skidaway Island. It looks like they have some nice trails, but it will be a bit chilly.
Photos
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