EG Simmons Park - Biking and Paddling

 

I have camped at EG Simmons County Park six different times in last seven years. I'm happy that many travelers skip this campground because the park does not take reservations. But I found out that if you come after a weekend rather than before a weekend it is easy to get a site in January.

If fact during the past week there were plenty of open campsites until Friday afternoon. I have never seen that many empty campsites. The have 100 large campsites in two campgrounds. I like the East campground since the sites are larger and it is near the canoe trail.

Canoe Trail

You can hike, fish, paddle or ride your bike around the roads all over the park. They have a nice canoe trail laid out with 20 numbered posts in the water starting in the north channel of the east campground and around the bay in the center of the park. You can paddle 2 miles to post #20 and walk back to the kayak launch or just paddle one mile back to your start. All the campsites in either campground have easy access to Tampa Bay for canoes or kayaks. So far this trip I've paddled the trail twice. The weather has been great, temperatures are in the high 70's. We did have one rainy day.

Area Map

Red, Green, Blue & Yellow lines are my 4 long bike rides & kayak paddle across bay.

But why confine your bike riding to the park. The main road from the park to the different neighborhoods around Ruskin and Apollo Beach has a nice bike lane on a lightly travelled road. The neighborhoods have sidewalks and quiet residential gated communities. I had no trouble going past the gates and then peddle up and down all the beautiful streets in the Apollo Beach area. 

So far I did two 20 mile bike rides, and a 16 mi ride on Sunday, I take a lunch with me and stop at some of the nice park areas and take a rest stop in the shade of their pavilions.

You can bike ride all the way over to a Manatee viewing area built by the power company. Hundreds of Manatees are attracted to the warm water being discharged into Tampa Bay. This in-turn attracts lots of tourists. The last road to the viewing area has no bike lane or sidewalk and some traffic to deal with. 

However even though Peggy didn't like riding on roads with cars she didn't mind the sprint up the road to the attraction. 

It looks like we will have nice dry weather for another week. It is  forecast to rain on my birthday weekend.