Family Outdoor Adventures: Eglin AFB Boiling Creek and Blackwater River State Park

I was thinking last night about the whole gardening and kayaking blog and realized I do so much of both I need to separate them. So going forward, I am just putting my kayaking adventures here. Today, I wanted to start with my most recent mini vacation to the Panhandle area in Florida. This past week, we made a long twelve hour journey from Central Florida to North Florida. Now, the drive can be done in about 7.5-8 hours, but we were pulling a pop-up camper, loaded down with two kayaks, and I wanted to go the scenic route. We drove up 98, forgot to make a turn near Perry and ended up heading towards Tallahassee. On the outskirts of Tally, we took 27 to 319 and headed south again through Woodville, stopping for lunch in St. Marks. The drive through Panama City Beach has really changed, Apalachicola, not too much. I remembered Seaside, but not Watercolor, which we also drove through.

Arriving at Fred Gannon Rocky Bayou State Park, we set up camp in site 24, adjacent to the ranger's private residence road. The sites were not extremely private, but not too bad. Checking in, I asked the ranger about kayaking in Puddin' Head Lake. He laughed and told me it was drained two years ago and was in a restoration process back to its natural state which was just a trickling stream at this point. I had written a detailed itinerary for our trip with the following day's activities exploring the park's waterways - this hiccup was not a big deal as I figured it would give us more time to explore Blackwater River State Park. I initially wanted to stay at Blackwater River but their campsites were full when I had made our reservations earlier in the month. The forecast was not favorable for us. The picture above shows our campsite after one of the many storms we endured.

Eglin Air Force Base Boiling Creek

We had to stop at Jackson Guard station to obtain a special pass to be on the base and use it for recreational purposes. You need your driver's license or ID and you have to watch a safety video. I learned about UXO - or unexploded ordnances. So, if you are walking in the woods on a military mission/bombing range and you see bullet casings, bullets, anything that looks like an explosive device - do not pick it up and proceed to smash it with something or throw it in a fire - really?? The nice ladies at the station issued our passes and gave us a huge map of the base. We had to drive about 40 minutes because of active missions and DO NOT ENTER areas on the map to get to our destination. They asked us why did we come out this week as it has been raining constantly.. While the storms rolled in, we got in the truck and headed out..passing our turn off road once, the gigantic map was a little bit bulky trying to hold in the cab of the truck. You would think with a giant map, a car GPS and a handheld GPS we wouldn't get lost. At last we arrived to our remote spot..which, actually turned out not to be so remote since several people came and went while we were there..they looked like military families enjoying the creek.

We pulled right up to the water

The paddle was enjoyable. The creek had white, sandy bottoms and mostly clear water - the levels and clarity were altered due to the large amounts of rain but we could still get the idea that it was a clear creek. It twisted and turned through the land. We heard bombs going off in the distance for quite some time, as long as it wasn't storming. Towards the end of the trip, jets were circling above over and over, doing some sort of exercise I imagine. We paddled for several miles to the confluence of the Yellow River which was wide and moving very quickly. We went out a little bit onto the river but the current was so fast for me, I turned back to the creek right away while John paddled a little ways up the River to see what was at the next bend.

Waiting out the storm in the truck

We had to paddle under this bridge. I was worried about the water getting too high and not making it, we had to duck, but we made it.

Alien looking pitcher plants lined the banks

Beautiful Palamedes Swallowtails were flitting along the banks, finally was able to capture one when it landed

Twists and turns, overcast sky

Lily on the bank

Ebony Jewelwing

Blackwater River State Park

On day two, we drove out to Holt, Florida to Blackwater River State Park. I happened to notice the logs for two of the geocaches I was seeking had not been found in the past year, so I cancelled the quest assuming they were not going to be there. Went after another one, we did not find near the entrance to the park. The park was desolate, the ranger was not at the station and not five minutes after arriving at the parking lot to the beach area, an intense storm rolled in. We waited it out under then pavilions connected by boardwalks near the restrooms. We checked out the beach and noticed the current of the river was swift like the Yellow River, presumably from all the rain. I had an outline of about ten geocaches along the river that I wanted to go after but they were located near an upstream bridge. Since we didn't have a shuttle, we did not want to paddle downstream with such a fast current, then have to paddle back upstream to the truck. We decided to put in downstream so we could paddle up to the caches, then back down with the current when it was time to turn around. Using my GPS as a guide, I tried to direct us through the woods to get as close of a put in as I could to the end of the cache trail I had marked. A primitive campsite led to a 'cliff' that would not do as a put-in. Eventually, we did find and settle on a put-in that was as close as we could get, about .75 miles from the first cache. We made it to about .48 miles but John had an emergency at work which he needed cell phone coverage for, so we had to head back to the put-in early. We enjoyed lunch on the white, sandy bank of one of the beaches.