The weather has finally gotten better and we took advantage of a sunny, low 70’s day with low humidity to explore Cumberland Island and the National Seashore. If one doesn’t have a personal watercraft to get to Cumberland Island ($4 per person entrance fee), there is a ferry ($20 per person, round-trip) that will take you there twice a day (three times in the summer).
Reservations are recommended, and required during the busier times (weekends and summertime), but we tried our luck with walk-on passage and there was plenty of availability.
Cumberland Island is Georgia’s largest barrier island and without urban sprawl and development; it is basically the same as it was decades ago – no roads (well, they’re sand), no stores, you get the idea. Cumberland Island is known for its natural beauty, the wild horses, and the First African Baptist Church (est. 1893), important for its own right, but also the site of John F. KennedyJr’s wedding. The only way to get to the church is a day-long bus ride ($15 per person) and we didn’t want to spend the entire day there, so we did the popular 3½ southern route. However, the bus trip is on our list for future things to do, as we enjoyed Cumberland Island.
The
southern route (known as the Dungeness Trail) takes one through a beautiful
maritime forest, then onto the ruins of Dungeness. The ruins are the remain of
Thomas (the younger brother of Andrew) and Lucy Carnegie’s mansion, built in
the 1880’s.
A fire destroyed the home in
1959, and what is seen today are the ruins as well as the other homes of the
compound, such as the Tabby House, the oldest house on the island originally
inhabited by Catherine Greene Miller beginning around 1796 ~ in fact, this is
the oldest house on the island. (Eventually this was the gardener’s cottage
when the Carnegie’s lived here.)
After seeing a few of the different buildings, we walked along the wooden boardwalks,
After seeing a few of the different buildings, we walked along the wooden boardwalks,
until we arrived at the silky, sandy beach
The tide was out so the beach was quite large,
with lots of seashells sprawled along the sand. Surprisingly, you are allowed
to collect seashells here (as they are a renewable resource), so we did take
one. The beach is comparable to the Oregon
beaches (our favorite) in some way – large and walk able for miles.
As we meandered along, we
eventually did come to some of the wild horses on the beach one sees in
photographs of Cumberland
Island. We saw other
horses on our walk, but were excited to see some on the beach.
We continued to walk around
the campground – there is a primitive campground for walk-in campers that also
arrive on the ferry – and the sites were quite cool. We enjoyed a ranger talk
(well, actually a movie) for about half-an-hour, then took the ferry back to
St. Mary’s.
Definitely an enjoyable day
and like we said, we’ll be back to do more of the island another time.
Easy and affordable - no matter where you are!
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