Cape Canaveral - North to South Carolina

6 May –

After publishing the last blog we drove down to the beaches of Miami and North Miami with their apartments on the beachfront.  We could not find anywhere to park so we drove on and up the I-95 passing thru Fort Lauderdale and onto Palm Beach where we did a shop up. This area was much the same as Miami Beach with gated communities and apartments. As this was Friday night we had pre-booked a site at Jonathan Dickinson State Park for the weekend. This is a very new camping area with many large sites.

7 May –

Another sunny day but much cooler. We even had the duvet on last night. We rode the bikes about 5 miles to the visitors centre down by the river. There seemed to be lots on with an official bike and a canoe race happening. Back at “Ernie” we spent a very lazy afternoon enjoying the cooler temperatures reading and relaxing.

8 May –

We drove back down to the visitors centre to use the free Wi-Fi to book a state park for next weekend and check on any rocket launchings from Cape Canaveral where we will be next week. Unfortunately the next launch is 10 June. On the road and north on the “1” thru the populace built up coastal areas. Slow going! We are now about ½ way up the east coast of Florida. Eventually we went further out onto the “A1A” which follows the coastline and came to the Sebastian Inlet State Park and managed to book 1 night with the hope of another night tomorrow. We have a great site overlooking the huge inlet with boats coming and going. We rode down to the surf beach and enjoyed the sun and the sea. The water temperature is about 23C. Sat watching the sunset over the bay in balmy temperatures. We have been really lucky as the humidity has been really low. There are no mosquitoes but we have been plagued the whole time we have been in Florida by a tiny (about ½ poppy seed sized) little bug called by the locals “no-see-ums”. You do not feel them bite but the result itches for hours.

9 May –

Back to the ranger where we managed to get another different site for tonight. We rode back to the surf beach but the tide was higher and too rough to swim. Nice in the sun though. After lunch we rode to another beach near the entrance of the inlet and as the surf was better were able to have a couple of swims and sunbathe. The temperatures are around 30C. Another balmy evening watching the sunset.

10 May –

We drove up the A1A following the beaches thru some nice unpretentious areas with lovely houses right on the beach. The camp we are at is on Cape Canaveral with beaches on one side and a canal leading to Port Canaveral on the other. We booked in for 2 nights as we will visit the Kennedy Space Centre tomorrow. We biked thru the camp to the beach and spent a couple of hours swimming and sunbathing. There is a casino ship that goes past our campsite and out to sea for 5 miles so that the gambling is legal.

11 May –

Woke to the surprise of a huge cruise liner just outside our bedroom window. It must have snuck in during the night. We left the camp and drove 19 miles to the Kennedy Space Centre. We debated whether we would go as it seemed it would be very like the Houston Space Centre which we visited last year. In some aspects it was but all done in an entirely different way. After buying our tickets we decided to take the bus trip passed the Rocket Assembly Building. This is said to be one of the largest buildings by volume in the USA.

The flag on the building’s side has stripes that are 3m wide which gives you a sense of its size. We drove 4 ½ miles on to the various launch pads. The rockets are driven on huge tracked platforms from the assembly building to the launch pads. 4 ½ miles is the minimum safe distance if there is an explosion! Our next stop was at the Saturn V building where marvelled at the huge rocket used to launch the Apollo missions. We went into the launch control room

where there was clever audio visual simulation of a take-off. This was interesting as 10 seconds after the launch the flight is handed over to Houston where we had also been in the control room. Back on the bus to the visitors centre and the space shuttle programme. Another clever audio visual display lead us thru to where the last space shuttle, Atlantis, was housed. We even went into a simulator where we experienced the noise, thrust and vibration of a take-off. The last area we visited was the Orion Mars programme which included a 3D IMAX film. It was a great day and we spent a total of about 6 hours there. Well worth the $US50 entrance fee.

12 May –

Back on the “1” (the coastal highway) and north thru the Space Coast. At Daytona Beach we headed inland on a scenic byway into the Ocala National Forest. There were several camping sites in this forest and we ended up at Salt Springs Rec. Area. After lunch we rode our bikes down to the spring which turned out to be a beautiful natural spring (a bit like the Pupu springs near Takaka). The water was pleasantly cool (the locals thought it was cold) and we had a couple of great swims. Do not know why it is called Salt Springs as it was very fresh water.

13 May –

This is another Friday so we have a pre-booked camp for a couple of nights at Gold Head Branch State Park. It was a short drive of 40 miles but we stopped for shopping, fuel, and LPG on the way. The weather is quite hot again (around 35C) but we had a nice shady site. At about 6:00pm we had a brief electrical storm and some rain. This cooled things down.

14 May –

As we have been a bit lazy latterly we decided to do a longer walk today. We packed our lunch and followed The Florida Trail which comes thru this park.  It was a great walk thru various types of forest, some very dry areas and some lush ferned ravines. We walked for about 7 miles and were happy to get back to “Ernie” as the temperature was back up again. Spent the rest of the day in the shade relaxing.

15 May –

We headed back towards the Florida coast around the northern city, Jacksonville to a State Park at Fort Clinch. On the way we got two large stone chips on our windscreen. Fortunately we are insured for this! We checked in for 1 night with the possibility for another if we wanted it. There were two camping areas, one on the beach, and one near the fort where we had a cool site under the huge trees with Spanish moss hanging down. 

It was a short bike ride to Fort Clinch.
The construction of the fort was started by the Confederate army during the Civil War but abandoned and taken over by the Unionist. Huge canons guarded the entrance to the Cumberland Sound. The fort has never completed or used in anger. Back on our bikes and a 2 mile ride to the beach. This was another lovely NZ type beach with surf but the water temperature was about 8C warmer than NZ. We have purchased small sun umbrellas for our chairs which were very successful.  We liked the beach so much we decided to spend another day here.

 

16 May –

We had to drive back to the park gate to book another night. Back on our site Val did a wash and then we drove back to the beach and spent 4 hours enjoying it with a break for lunch in “Ernie”. The weather is perfect with just a slight breeze to cool the temperature down. This will be our last night in Florida where have been for nearly 5 weeks.

17 May –

We left the state park and headed north on the I-95 for about 90 miles along the coast of Georgia which is made up of salt flats and inlets. The weather forecast was not good and we ran into rain just before we headed back out to the coast at Skidaway Island State Park. The rain got heavier and was torrential for about 4 hours (3.5”)  Probably the heaviest rain we have ever experienced. Later in the evening it eased off.

18 May –

We decided to have haircuts in the morning. The weather slowly cleared and we drove thru the old historic town of Savannah, across a large bridge and into South Carolina. Our plan was to stay a couple of nights at Hunting Island State Park, which to our surprise is on a beach. They had a site for two nights. Unfortunately the site the staff gave us was totally under water from the same rain as we had had in Georgia. We waded around in the muddy water and set ourselves up but after a walk around the camp we went back to the Park HQ and were given site that was not underwater. There is a nice beach here which we will hopefully use tomorrow.

19 May –

An overcast morning and the weather quite cool.  As it is forecast to rain this afternoon we went down to the beach after breakfast. It was pleasant but we were not tempted for a swim. After lunch we walked along the flat wide beach to a lighthouse. It was huge and a long climb (170 steps) to the top with great views in all directions. When we returned to “Ernie” the forecast rain arrived.

20 May –

We left this soggy camp and drove north thru the islands, inlets and swamps. There are shrimp boats docked along the canals. This is where they filmed the scene in Forest Gump with Bubba and the shrimp boat. We had lunch at the cute little town of Meggett. I tracked down a lady at the town hall who told us the history of Meggett. The town was named after a large family called Meggetts. We drove on to a camp just out of the historic city of Charleston which we will visit tomorrow. Good internet so we managed to skype the family and will publish this blog.

Everglades & the Keys

25 April –

Back on the busy roads of Fort Myers. This is retirement country with many apartment complexes and gated communities either on the beaches or close. It is also a series of islands with bridges connecting them. At Lovers Key State Park we paid our admission and set off on a boardwalk to the beach. It was a lovely beach with white sand and clear warm water. We sunbathed and swam for a couple of hours before returning to “Ernie” for lunch under the shade of some trees. Unfortunately we cannot camp here so headed on thru Naples (more retirement country). The next State Park was closed so we drove on for ½ hour to a private camping ground. On the way the skies opened and it poured. The guy was reluctant to go out in the rain to show us our site. It was muggy so we put up the awning. No chance to dry the towels and bathing suits however.

26 April – We are heading east and south across the bottom of Florida to the Everglades National Park where we plan to spend 2 or 3 nights. Before entering the park we went thru Florida City where we managed to find a panel shop to fix our break-in damage. Spanish seems to be the main language here so it took some explaining what we wanted. We will return to the panel shop on Friday and hopefully all will be fixed. The Everglades National Park is the largest area of everglades in the world consisting mainly of swamp, waterways and lakes. We stopped at the first visitors centre to find out what there is to see and do. We are right at the end of the season as it virtually closes in the summer

because it is too hot, wet and sticky for anyone to visit. One of the camps we planned to stay in was closed due to a fire about 2 weeks ago. Not having much luck with these camps! We drove to an area where there were a couple of walks and heard a ranger talk on crocodiles and alligators.  On a short walk we spied several alligators but they were a long way away. We drove 40 miles down into the everglades to the only camp that was open at Flamingo. The camp was huge but there was only about 10 of us camping. This camp is on Florida Bay, a shallow bay with many islands. The mosquitos were supposed to be bad but we hardly saw one as we watched the sun set. We felt that it must be a bit like Africa.

27 April –

We rode our bikes back to the visitors centre at Flamingo. Not much there! We have decided to take a boat trip up the inland waterways so we made some inquiries and will go in the afternoon. On the way back to the camp we walked a track around a lake with many beautiful water birds. Back to the marina and off on our boat trip. It was a flat bottomed boat with about 25 people from a variety of countries on board. The captain was very informative as we cruised thru the mangrove swamps. We saw quite a few American

Crocodiles of various sizes. The crocs inhabit the salty water where as the alligators prefer fresh water. The everglades have been decimated by some of man’s activities including draining the swamps, harvesting the Flamingos for food and the egrets of their feathers, and latterly introducing (accidentally) the Burmese Python which have decimated the wildlife. The National Park Service is doing their best to storing the Everglades back to their original state.

28 April –

A nice breakfast outside in the warm breeze before heading out of Flamingo and a real break thru. Val is at the wheel and I am in the passenger’s seat for the first time in 4 years! Val did really well and drove us back out of the National Park. We stopped at a boardwalk to the largest mahogany tree in Florida, and another walk before lunch and exiting the N.P. and back into Florida City for a shop at Walmart and a RV Park close to the place doing our panel work tomorrow.

29 April –

Off to our Mexican panel shop for our 10:00am appointment to get the panel damage fixed when we were robbed. This is a family business with Dad, Daniel, (speaks very little English) and his three sons. The job is meant to take 2 hours so we walked up the road to a place to buy some decal to go over the repair. Did not want to spend the time or the expense to get the whole door repainted! Sorted out the right stuff and continued on in the increasing heat to walk to some shops and cafes. We filled in time at a doughnut place sitting in the air-conditioning. After 1 ½ hours we walked back to Daniel and Sons to find that there was very little progress on our job. Daniel was very apologetic (I think) and got on with the job stopping every 5 minutes to have another chat with us. (very hard work with his English). He had discovered that our air con in the cab was not working and offered the services of a son to have a look at it. He discovered that there was a faulty relay and I walked next door and bought a replacement. The aircon is now going great again. Good thing as it is now around 35C in the middle of the day. The work progressed slowly, by now we are Daniel’s best friend (must come and meet the wife when next we pass thru Florida City.) All the sons gathered around as we showed them our trip on the maps and sketched a map of the world explaining where NZ was. End result, they did a good job for not a bad price considering it included solving the aircon problem. Much waving and goodbyes and we eventually were on the road after 4 hours. What a laugh! It was a short drive down the “1” into the Florida Keys. These are a series of islands stretching 130 miles south to Key West. Each island is joined to the next by long bridges. We booked 5 nights at 2 State Parks last year before we came home. This area is very popular! Our camp for 3 nights is John Pennekamp Coral State Park very close to Key Largo. After a very late lunch we walked to the main beach for a swim and a snorkel. The swim was great but we think the snorkelling could be a bit limited. South Pacific islands may have spoiled us!

30 April –

After breakfast we installed the new decal on the passenger’s door to cover the robbery damage. It looks really good. There are 3 beaches in this park so we tried another one. The snorkelling was not any better but the swimming was great. We had to shift sites as even 6 months ago we could not book 3 nights on one site. After lunch we tried the 3^rd beach. The snorkelling was a little better but we fail to see why many people spend hours looking at the odd fish and a bit of weed! A nice relaxing time however. The temperature is perfect with the trade winds just making it cool enough.

1 May –

Another relaxing day. Down to the main beach for a swim and sunbathe before lunch. Back to “Ernie” for the hottest part of the day and then more swimming and sunbathing (in the shade) in the afternoon. We have discovered there is a mock Spanish wreck off the main beach so we snorkelled out to it. We saw some canons and an anchor and a few parrot fish. Lots of families on the beach as it is Sunday.

2 May –

It rained in the night and we had to close all the roof vents and windows. This makes the inside very hot so we turned on our fan for the first time. We find the aircon noisy to sleep with but may need to use it as it gets hotter. We went to the visitor’s centre where there was an aquarium with many reef fish. Back on the road south over the various bridges linking the islands of the Florida Keys for 30 miles to a pre-booked State Park at Long Key. Our site is backed right onto the water. The beach is very shallow and we had a couple of swims in the very hot water. We reckoned the water at the edge is

around 35C!! but slightly cooler further out. The trade winds blow in all day and keep the temperature pleasant. Val has discovered that we are booked here for 3 nights and not the 2 we originally thought. It is a nice place, so that is great.

3 May –

We walked along the beach to an old boat we thought had been used by kids but were told to our amazement that 3 nights ago at 3:00 in the morning the campers were woken by laughter and shouts of joy. This old boat had 13 Cuban refugees aboard and had sailed from Cuba in 3 days. The sail was made of rice sacks and the sides were galvanized iron. Cuba is about 80 miles away and this is the nearest landing in the USA. Spent the day in the shade and enjoying the water. We even did some snorkelling and saw some colourful fish and a lobster.

4 May –

A pleasant morning but cloudy and not a great weather forecast. We have another night at this State Park but decided to drive 30 miles south down the Keys to another State Park at Bahia Honda Key. This the only key that has a sandy beach and deep water. On our way we passed thru Marathon (the only town on the Keys apart from Key West and across more long bridges. The longest was 7 miles! The day was cloudy but still hot and we had a couple of swims either side of lunch in the waves of Sandspur in the State Park. It was like swimming on an NZ surf beach but with 26C water.

As we drove back to our camp at Long Key the skies darkened and we just beat the rain. In and out of “Ernie” for a couple of hours until the rain eventually settled in around 5:00pm. The wind got really strong and we spent a wet half hour trying to save the young couple next doors tent and gazebo. They had ignored the weather warnings gone out for dinner! Not much luck however so they came home to carnage!

5 May –

The storm cleared in the night to a beautiful clear day. The young couple next door slept in the car and were gone in the morning. There must be a skip somewhere with the remains of a tent and a gazebo. Back on the only road out of the Keys over the bridges and islands and into Florida City for the 3^rd time. We continued north with the traffic and the population steadily increasing as we approached Miami. We bypassed the main parts of the city and are camped at an RV Park near Miami Beach. Val did a laundry and I pumped gallons of sand out of “Ernie”. The Internet worked earlier but as the office is closed it has now stopped. If it comes back tomorrow morning we will publish this blog. There is a nice pool at this camp so we had a couple of swims after our work. The temperature is much cooler here and not as humid.