2005/03 Deep South trip - Cumberland Island |
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We needed to do some shopping and access the Internet so we went around the west side of the swamp to Waycross, the largest town in the area. Remember John Denver’s “Waycross Georgia farm boy”? We managed to book the campsite for our usual trip up to Gooseberry Falls in June. You can only book 90 days in advance. Last year in Australia we were a day late in trying to book and it was already full.
We were headed for the Georgia seaside this time, or at least the estuary of the Crooked River, which looks to be tidal. The mud flats have that same sulphurous fragrance that gives Sussex by the Sea its reputation. By the looks of things, the state park used to have an attractive trail that went right along the clifftops, but erosion has caused chunks of the trail to fall off the cliff into the sea. Consequently, the whole river frontage is now blocked off and the only place to access the river is a concrete boat ramp. There is a swimming pool and crazy golf so kids probably still like the park but it seems a shame to lose access to the river itself. However, our main reason for coming here was to take the nearby ferry over to Cumberland Island, another of the barrier islands, this time on the Atlantic Ocean coast.
Thursday March 17th
By morning, we had a steady drizzle, but we decided to go to the island anyway. We had a scramble to get over to the town of St Mary, and find the ferry dock. Let’s just say that we were the last to buy tickets. The people on the boat looked ready for a polar expedition, except for one idiot in shorts. They quickly identified me as the Minnesotan.
It’s a 45 minute trip across the Cumberland River estuary to Cumberland Island, and the rain got steadily heavier. Most people headed for shelter under the ancient and enormous live oaks, but a few die-hards went with the park ranger for a 
tour of the Dungeness ruins.
Obviously well practiced, the ranger walked backwards, talking as the rain beat down. She told us of the island’s history from the Indians to the Spanish to the plantation era to the days of the Carnegies. One of the steel baron Carnegie brothers bought it for his wife and she built the Dungeness mansion here. It was her “summer house” with three hundred staff. She also built mansions on other parts of the island for her 
children. The summer house burned after she died. In the 1970s the family donated most of the land to the park service, though some other parts of the island are still owned by the Carnegies, the Rockefellers, and the Coca Cola family.
After the tour we headed for the marshes and dunes on the south end of the island, and were thinking 
of walking up the Atlantic coast beaches. However, there was a brisk and cold nor-easter coming off the sea, and rain was coming at us horizontally. So we retreated to the trails through the forest and along the marshes. This had an understory of palms beneath the live oaks and even the occasional cactus where the dunes were covering the forest.
The place looked tropical even on this cold day. We saw pelicans, egrets, armadillos, a dolphin, and even some feral 
horses out in the marshes. For the first time we were able to take a picture of the armadillo’s face. Can 
see why he keeps it hidden! The rain eased off in mid-afternoon, so we walked back down the beach in the dry, but now in the forties and still windy.
The evening ferry was half-empty on the way back, as some people must have wimped out and caught the afternoon ferry.