Finished another week at Silver Lake and now at Ocean Pond

 

During my last week at Silver Lake I biked twice and paddled twice.

I paddled upstream for 3 miles and stopped at this nice beach for lunch and then headed back to camp. I don't know if this is private property or not but it doesn't look like a good place to park.

I kayaked upstream twice this week. I didn't see any gators or birds like my downstream paddle and you also pass some homes along the way. But you will see a lot of turtles sunning on the logs.

In all my bike rides to Brooksville over the past 4 years on the paved 10 mi long Good Neighbor Trail, we usually stopped at the train museum and park at the end of the trail. There is not much else around there. 

I was wondering where all the stores in Brooksville were. I looked on the map and saw that if I just biked through a few quiet neighborhood streets I could make my way over to all the stores and restaurants and even a Walmart. It did make it a 30 mi long bike ride.

I got a nice early start from Cypress Glen campground at sunrise, 7:30AM on Sunday morning (3/12). I stopped at a Walmart and Aldi’s near Starke and got to Ocean Pond campground in Osceola National Forest near Lake City, FL by 11:15 am. They do not take reservations and have a 14 day camping limit. 

I was hoping to get one of the 19 sites with electrical & water hookups and lucked out, someone had just pulled out of #6.  It's a nice big site with lots of shade and trees to tie up my hammock.

The power sites are normally full everyday but from Sunday to Thursday if you get here by 10-11 AM you can usually get a site. All the campsites are always full on the weekends. There are three different camps at Ocean Pond, the second one has about 20 water hookup only sites and the last one is in a nice woods but no water hookups, it is better for tent campers. They raised the price this year so the sites with senior discounts are only $20, $10 and $6. The extra $10 for the power sites makes the non-power sites more popular than in the past.

On Sunday night I finally got the first heavy rain on this whole trip. A cold front also brought a tornado watch but it never got that windy but it didn't stop raining until noon so I took the time to write this week's blog.

Ocean Pond is a 2 mi diameter round lake and if it were not windy you could do a nice 6 mile paddle along the shore line. I have never paddled here. I have biked all the forest roads in the area shown on the above map. The best ride is the one over to Olustee Battlefield State Park, it is the site of the biggest civil war battle in FL. There are a couple more rustic campgrounds in the area, Hog Pen and Cobb.

I don't have a date yet when  I plan to leave and head for home. It mostly depends on the weather. I have usually made it home from here in 2-1/2 days.