Wekiwa Springs–Our Last Camp Before the Holidays

Wekiwa Springs State Park home of the National Wild & Scenic Wekiva River.  I can’t figure our the significance of the two ways they spell this. 

We decided to try the 8.5 mile long Rock Springs Run. The river starts at Kelly Park and flows into the Wekiva River near the State Park.

Camping is available there as well as in the popular the State Park which is only 10 miles North of Orlando. It is an amazing preserve with thousands of acres of wilderness with hiking trails  and many paddling options.

You can rent canoes and kayaks at several different locations depending on what part of the river system you want to paddle.

Rock Springs Run had lots of good recommendations. It is a crystal clear stream with an abundance of wildlife. 

One thing I noted was that they rented tubes for floating the upper portion of the run in Kelly Park and it was probably a zoo on weekends in warm weather.

We decide we would start a half mile downstream at an  outfitter called King’s Landing. For only $20 a canoe they let you launch your own boat at their property and pick you up at the end of the 8.5 mile run, which they say takes about 4 hours.

We decided to go on a Monday and there were 5 other customers who launched about an hour before we did. The outfitter said that if we called him when we finished and we all were there, he would bring us back early, rather than have to wait to the normal 4 PM shuttle time.

It was a very pretty run, it had a white sand bottom in places so you could see the fish. It was wide with lily pads in places and very narrow in some places. Beside all the birds, we saw an otter, raccoon, lots of turtles and a couple of small alligators. I think this one had his eye out for a turtle for lunch.

We passed the other group, so we stopped for a short break at one of the three nice campsites along the river. We passed them once again and were waiting on the shuttle when they pulled up.

It was a warm day, 83^oF but cloudy, it was very pleasant day and we got back to camp by 3:30 PM.

We will camp here again on Tuesday night, getting everything set for our drive to near the Orlando Airport on Wednesday morning. We will leave our RV at a storage lot at Lake Whippoorwill KOA and fly back to Cleveland on Spirit Airlines. Flights were cheap and we have no luggage, so we will see how it goes.