April 20 - April 30 Car Camping and Backpacking on Georgia Coast

 Skidaway Island State Park and Savannah

We first did several days of car camping at a state park just south of Savannah.  While there, we went to Tybee Island and did some touring in Savannah.

Our campsite at Skidaway Island
You can see the firepit that I accidentally fell onto the first night when I tripped on a tree root in the dark.  Luckily, I hit with my legs, not my head, but I was still really bruised on both legs.  We iced them down, but I still had/have some places that look bad but don't feel bad.  Not a good start to the trip.

We did a walking tour of Savannah on our birthday:  April 23.

The city is really beautiful, with gorgeous old homes and beautiful public squares.  The following is just a small sampling of what we saw:

Savannah College of Art in old armory building

A lovely fountain in one of the famous squares, whose name I've forgotten

Flannary O'Connor's childhood home
She is one of Alan's favorite authors.

We went out to a restaurant next to  the river on our birthday.

Steps going down to River Street.  We thought this sign was really funny.

Backpacking at Cumberland Island National Seashore

We had read an article in Backpacker Magazine about the wonderful sights at Cumberland Island.  Alan had been there before and loved it, so we decided to do five days going to four different primitive campgrounds on the island.  The only way to get to the island is by boat.  The park service runs a ferry from St. Mary's, Georgia.  It was a delightful 45 minute ride to the island.

 National Park Service brochure for Cumberland Island National Seashore
NOTE:  TO RETURN TO THE BLOG AFTER LOOKING AT A LINK, CLICK ON THE X ON THE TAB, NOT THE X IN THE RIGHT CORNER.

We were at Seacamp Campground the first and last days there.

Huge live oak trees with coiled and crisscrossed branches hung with Spanish moss were all over the island.

Our last campsite at Seacamp was a small clearing in the palmetto bushes.

The raccoons were so bad that you were required to put food in a cage,
where the palmetto bugs lived.

A short walk from Seacamp was the ruins of Dungeness:

Dungeness was the winter home of  Thomas and Lucy Carnegie and their nine children
 (+ over 300 servants)
It was an exact replica of their home in Pennsylvania.

Interesting link about Dungeness. I recommend reading this.

On our way to the next campsite, we saw lots of tree limbs covered with beautiful ferns.

Yankee Paradise, our backcountry campsite, 7 1/2 miles from Seacamp, where we stayed for two days.

Alan sitting under a palm tree at Yankee Paradise, reading at dusk.  

While at Yankee Paradise, we hiked to Plum Orchard, another Carnegie home,
which is beautifully preserved by the Park Service.
We had a great tour of the house, which still has many of the original furnishings.

info on Plum Orchard

Poinsettia Tiffany Lamp at Plum Orchard

"Turtle Shell" style Tiffany Lamp at Plum Orchard

There were these beautiful palm type trees on the grounds at Plum Orchard.  I don't know what they are.

From Yankee Paradise, we hiked along the beach to the Stafford Beach Campground

There are a lot of wild horses on the island.
This stallion moseyed by us while we had lunch on the dunes next to the beach.

A downed log was our sitting area for cooking and reading.

The only critters that bothered us at Stafford were wrens.  A pair of wrens insisted on trying to build a nest in Alan's backpack.  He had to keep chasing them away and cleaning the nesting materials out of his pack.

I realize now that we didn't get any pictures of the beach or the dunes at Seacamp or Stafford.  

However, if you have seen the Atlantic and dunes in other places like the Outer Banks, you know what we saw. 

Many people go there just to go to the beach for a day or two.  There are very few people on the beaches, so it is ideal for those who want beach solitude. Another reason people go there in May is because the sea turtles nest and lay their eggs on the beach.  It is possible to go down at night and watch them.  We were there too early to see that, though. Alan and Susie saw them on a past visit, and said it was most interesting.

After five days of hot, muggy weather and no hot showers, we were happy to catch the ferry, go to a nice motel, take a shower, eat some seafood at a great restaurant, and head back to the cool temps in Tennessee.  (Cumberland Island is at the Georgia/Florida border.)