Ocean Pond to Ichetucknee River

After spending 11 days at Ocean Pond National Forest Campground we moved on  Sunday morning .

We remembered a nice paved bike trail at Big Shoals State Park called the Woodpecker Trail. It was only a short drive from Lake City where we did some grocery shopping. So we biked for a few hours and then drove to our overnight at O’Leno State Park. It is a nice campground right off I-75 and usually has room after weekenders leave.

We had no phone or Internet here and decided to do the first canoe paddle on our trip the next morning at Ichetucknee Springs.

This is a big spring with a lot of flow and even though we have paddled it many times it is a great 2-1/2 hr. paddle trip.

We saw 4 deer, hundreds of turtles, lots of Heron and Ibis.

We had no problem getting the canoe off and on the RV. I bought a small cart that made it easy to get from the parking area to the boat launch.

We like to park at the take-out and paddle upstream to the spring and then have an easier float back to take-out.

After the paddle, instead of going back to O’Leno we drove to another Florida State Park, Manatee Springs. We got there at 1 PM and on a Monday they had lots of available camp sites.