Paddling and Biking leaves no time for Blogging

We really enjoyed our long 16 day stay at Ocean Pond Campground. Since last blog we got in one more 13 mi bike ride. Our legs and tooshes are finally getting used to the biking. So now it is time to try some canoeing. One of the prettiest river not far from here is the Ichetucknee Springs which we try to paddle if we are nearby. We left our campground on Thanksgiving morning and found room at the take-out to park our camper.

I guess a lot of people like to paddle on this 3 mile long river on the holiday. Almost all were starting at the spring and paddle the 3 miles to the take-out. We avoid a shuttle and paddle 2 hours upstream against the current and coast back in less than an hour.

I forgot my camera and I’ll bet we saw 1000 tame turtles on every tree in the water sunning themselves. And they just sit there even when you are next to them.
There are many large birds here also like Ibis, Egrets, Great Blue Herons but our biggest thrill, especially today being Thanksgiving, was watching 8 turkeys fly across the river right in front of us. There is no fishing allowed on the Ichetucknee and no food or drinks except in personal bottles, no drink bottles, which made the area very clean, even though 1000’s of tubers float the river on warm days, the water is always 72^oF.
After we paddled, we headed west, as per our plan and stayed overnight at a Walmart in Perry, FL. We didn’t realize that Black Friday started at 6 PM. We found a place to park for the night way in the back for their trucks and ignored the frantic shoppers.

We left early in the morning while it was still very cool to try to avoid any crowds on the Wacissa River. It was a short drive and we were on the water by 9 am. This is another beautiful clear river formed by large springs. However it is totally different. Didn’t see any turtles on our cold morning start but plenty of big birds including anhinga's. The river was very wide and shallow. We did get a thrill seeing about 5 otters playing right in front of us.
If it wasn’t hunting season you could paddle about 10 miles downstream to Goose Pasture Campground, a primitive first come campground on the river. So our paddle was another up and back trip. We paddled to the dam and back about 7 miles. At the dam turnaround the temperature finally got into the mid 70’s and it was very sunny.
We did not enjoy this river as well because of the fishermen in little motor boats. But it had a great parking lot with plenty of room which was right next to the water.  So by noon as the day got warm  many more boats began to arrive. We had a short drive to our next campsite at Newport County Park. We got a nice site #14 with power and water and there were opportunities nearby for boating & biking.