We took a trip there after first visiting Okefenokee swamp again.
We had a great time and saw plenty of alligators - Donal had a hard time believing they were real at first as they stay so still and are right there in front of you on the foot paths! Some of us (read: everyone but Nik) went to the reptile show and got to touch snakes and baby alligators. We spent the night in St. Mary's and then headed off bright and early on our camping adventure.
Cumberland Island is an island off the coast of Georgia. It's a protected national park and you can only get there by your own boat or by the daily ferry service. They only allow 300 people on the island at one time and it's about the size of Manhattan, so you can have all the privacy you want. The beaches are long, wide and extremely beautiful.
We decided to initiate my sister in the ways of camping. You can only bring what you can carry onto the island so I was a little worried about supplies, tent, sleeping things and food for 6 people for 3 days but it turns out that we managed just fine, we even had some food left over!
Ramen noodles in the rain anyone?
We arrived on the ferry, checked in and were assigned our camp site. After a short hike through a canopy of the most beautiful gnarled oak trees and groundcover of spiky saw palmetto, we got to our camp site. Despite the rain we managed to get our tent up, a fire going and extra wood chopped. Unfortunately it continued to rain all day and all night! We didn't mind too much and figured if we were already wet, we might as well just go to the beach and get even wetter in the ocean.
The kids are real water babies and love, love, LOVE the beach. They complain at home if they get water in their faces in the bath tub but somehow they don't mind getting hit square in the face by a big wave! Lily had fun chasing the sea birds and trying to stick her little fingers into every sand flea hole she could find. She's also an avid beach comber and we managed to find some beautiful shells.
After the weather eased up the next day, we went on a LONG hike (especially for little feet) to the Dungeness ruins and to see the wild horses.
We saw several armadillos, live ones - up until that point I'd only ever seen squished ones by the side of the road. A real highlight, oddly enough, was watching the amazingly colorful dung beetles busily clearing the hiking trails after the horses had been through. It was a very entertaining sight!
I don't quite think we converted our guests to camping - rain + sand + cold showers don't really add up to a spa vacation but it was a once in a lifetime trip. And boy did our warm showers feel good once we got home!
Our brave photographer.
This photo pretty much sums up our first 24 hrs....... wet!
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