I guess he’s right where Walt Kelley left him all those decades ago. If I thought I was dating myself with those Maverick references, this will surely enshrine me in geezerdom. We never saw a possum, but Albert is alive and well!
We left Hattiesburg and traveled south through Biloxi and then over to the Florida panhandle. Nothing to see here, folks, move along. The panhandle roads, be they the interstate or back roads, mostly have one, monotonous view: trees.
This is not to say that things aren’t green, clean, and beautiful, they are. It’s just that you can only take so many trees. Give me one of those high desert vistas. We made it to the Stephen C. Foster State Park, a Georgia park located in the middle of the Okefenokee. This place is isolated! There were only six other rigs staying there the first night; by the third night, we had the place to ourselves; no other campers. Our site backed into the swamp, and had a nifty view out our back window (that’s the scoot mirror on the right edge).
When they hit the windows, they’d BANG and PLOMP. It was like being under attack. Actually, the big ones weren’t the problem. It was the biting flies, pretty good sized themselves, and sort of brownish instead of black. Smack one of those babies and bright, red blood splashed all over. We decided to wear long pants and sleeves to keep as covered as possible.
First order of business was the nature trail, a raised boardwalk thing through the swamp. Easy stroll, eh?
Actually, this was a fairly dry area of the swamp, and we didn’t see any gators on our walk. We did hear a big bull rumbling in the distance. This is the end of the Spring mating season. Oh joy. Anyway, it was a pleasant walk through the trees
and the water vegetation. That’s a special bush on the left that grows out of cypress stumps.
There was Spanish moss (which hangs from limbs) and bearded moss (which clings to trunks) everywhere
This really is a beautiful park, and a must-see if you’re anywhere in the area. This is the walk back from the ranger station to our campground.
The next day we set out in search of Albert. We had thought of first taking a tour boat, but one of the other campers said it wasn’t worth it, and to just rent a boat. So that’s what we did. After spending a quarter hour trying to keep the first one they gave us running, we switched to a Honda-powered skiff and were off to terrorize the denizens.
Into the dark . . .
It wasn’t long before we started spotting gators right and left. We counted well over forty before we gave up. Most were submerged, only showing a bit:
Some were lying in wait:
Others were out on the banks, getting some sun, and showing off their full size:
Yikes! The average size in the swamp is 5 to 9 feet, with the bigger males going well into the teens. We estimated this guy above to be about 12 feet. This guy was a bit smaller:
It wasn’t in the camping literature we had reviewed beforehand, but they actually had a form of cable TV at each site. They have an antenna on a tall tower that picks up the Jacksonville signals, then they route it (analog only) via cable to the sites. The pictures were so-so, and disappeared from time to time, but hey, in the Okefenokee? So we got to watch the season finales of NCIS and The Good Wife. Cool, seeing as how we weren’t going to take any nighttime strolls with the aerial and amphibious critters.
The next day we decided to break out the Sea Eagle inflatable kayak that we’ve been lugging around the entire trip. It weighs about 50 lbs in the bag, so we unhooked and drove the rig up to the launch area. We hadn’t used it but once before, and that was a year ago at Morro Bay, so of course we had forgotten how to set it up. Mild cursing, a lot of sweating, and we finally got it over to the ramp and into the murk. The swamp water is actually quite clean, but because of the decaying plant matter it is dark tea colored. Looks much worse than it is. We felt rather intrepid setting out in gator paradise with only canvas between them and our bottoms. We didn’t mind them on the banks or at the edges, but when they decided to cross our path out in the middle of the river, we had a few yikes moments. The ranger had assured us they were more afraid of us than vice-versa, unless of course you harass them. Hmmmm. Just what constitutes harassment to a gator? Anyway, off we went. We made no wake.
One of the nice things about kayaking is that you can sneak up on things that otherwise would have long flown the coop.
We think these are white ibis, rather than herons, although we saw both. Even more impressive were the much larger wood storks. Unfortunately, I never could get the camera on one. But it is really neat to be floating through this dark swamp and have these huge birds rise up and fly in front of and above you.
Did I say we hadn’t done this in a year? And that it was HOT? After about two and a half hours, we were exhausted and streaming with sweat. This was a most welcome sign.
The Okefenokee has been the high point of the trip thus far. It’s just so otherworldly. Despite the heat, very cool indeed.
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