After visiting Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park and Big Shoals State Park in White Springs, Florida on the final day of our road trip, my buddy and I decided to hit one more spring on the way home. I checked the map of state parks and found three in the area, but Troy Spring stuck out as not only the closest, but also had a shipwreck there. We got to the park and headed down the long winding boardwalk to check out the spring and get some pictures. The swimming area was large and there were two guys there already, the same two guys that we saw at Big Shoals State Park.
I headed back to the car to change into my swimsuit and grab my goggles and GoPro before heading back down to the spring. I got into the water and right next to the boardwalk was the boil – a deep seventy foot hole in the ground. I dove down as far as I could a few times, but I wasn’t getting too far before running out of breath. After several dives I was out of breath, so I decided to swim around the swimming area which ended at a river – the Suwannee River. I had never realized the path that the Suwannee had cut through Florida before, it snakes its way through the state covering a lot of area. On the far end of the swimming area I had found the shipwreck, though I didn’t know that’s what it was at the time. It looked like a platform of some kind with rails going across buried almost entirely in the sand.
Throughout the water there were dozens of turtles swimming around, possibly over a hundred. Down near the river I had run into a large school of fish, though I wasn’t sure of the species. I spent some time checking out the shipwreck and the fauna before heading back towards the boardwalk. I took a couple more dives into the boil before heading back out. We decided we had time to hit one more spring before the day was over, but we would be back here before too long.
On the final day of my road trip, after visiting Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park in White Springs, Florida, it was just a hop, skip, and a jump to Big Shoals State Park, also in White Springs, Florida. Upon entering the park, my buddy and I walked a short path down to the canoe launch area which had calm waters. Just like all the other parks we hit on this day, the park resided on the Suwannee River.
We left the launch area and headed back through the parking lot and downstream where we found a hiking trail. We had searched Stephen Foster Park for the rapids we had heard about from some kids at Rainbow Springs, but hadn’t found any. We had high hopes of finding them in Big Shoals, and a sign had mentioned rapids about a mile downstream from the canoe launch. Figuring a normal walking pace, I figured it would take about twenty minutes of walking along the river, though the hiking path wound through the forest.
The hiking was pretty uneventful for the most part, occasionally getting a peek of the river, though no rapids. Finally after about twenty minutes of hiking, I could hear the rapids, though I wasn’t a hundred percent sure that’s what it was. We passed a couple hikers coming back, two fellows who we would see at Troy Spring and Peacock Springs later that day, and I knew that any spider webs along the path would have already been cleared, so I picked up my pace until I was jogging down the path. Finally we hit a clearing and found the rapids.
We climbed down a steep, slippery slope to the bank, which we probably shouldn’t have, and got some pictures and video from there. There was some trash along the river, most notably a seat cushion. I tried to sit my GoPro on a rock ledge to get a steady shot, but it was unbalanced and toppled over towards the river. I was on slippery rocks and couldn’t chase after it, so I just hoped it would stop in time and it did. I made my way down and grabbed the camera and found a steadier platform.
We got our footage and headed back up to the trail and back to the parking lot. Other than the rapids, there wasn’t much to the park, so it was a short trip before we headed off to the final two springs of our trip.
On the final day of our recent road trip, my buddy and I had decided to hit White Springs, Florida based on the excitement of some kids at Rainbow Springs State Park a month or so back. They had spoken highly of White Springs, so we set it as the cornerstone of our final day on the road. The night before we had slept at Apalachicola National Forest, though we had gotten up early and drove to White Springs through the night, stopping at a Steak n Shake along the way for a four-a.m. breakfast of steakburgers and milkshakes.
We got there well before the park opened, so we parked in a gravel lot just outside the park and waited. I cleaned some of the trash from the car since there was a trashcan nearby and noticed movement beyond the trees. It looked like a river and I got curious, so while my friend rested in the car, I walked down a small path that led to the Spring House. First I crossed over a small bridge which went over a dry creek bed which had a boil bubbling up from the ground producing a small trickle of water. I moved on to find the Spring House and climbed its stairs to the top to find a circular walkway around a pool of spring water deep below.
The smell of sulphur filled the air as I walked around the Spring House. On the side opposite the stairs the house looked out over the Suwannee River and below me was where the Spring House let out its water, much like a dam. I made my way back down the steps and around to a pathway that led to the river. Signs of alligators were posted, but as usual I took my chances and went alone to the river. The smell of sulphur was almost overwhelming at the river, right next to the dam. After a minute I got used to it though and it no longer bothered me.
The river flowed past, so I captured some GoPro footage of it and looking up at the sky I saw that the full moon was visible in the dawn light, so I tried to capture some footage of it as well, though it kept ducking shyly behind the clouds. Finally I went back to the car and told my buddy about it, so we made a trip back down there for him to see it.
Finally at eight the park opened and we were able to enter. We had been talking about canoeing the river here and we had also heard there were rapids somewhere. We parked the car and walked around, eventually finding the river, which was so low that the measuring stick in the ground was completely out of the water by a good three feet. According to a nearby sign, at this height, the river was slow moving for canoes, but so low that at many points you may need to get out and walk the canoe over the shallows.
There was also a sign marking the Florida Trail, something we had seen in many places before from Tampa, to our hometowns north of Orlando, and Seminole State Forest. We decided to change into hiking gear and go for a walk on the Florida Trail. The trail went about three miles before hitting the park exit, so that’s what we shot for. Along the way we would move away from the river and then back towards it, constantly getting a new look at the Suwannee. We stopped at a few points to get video and pictures but kept pushing for the northern tip of the park.
Along the way we came across some fallen trees with a detour and a snake lazing in the brush. As usual, my friend saw the snake and I was completely clueless as to its existence. We finally hit the three mile mark about an hour in and turned around. On the way back we saw another snake, or at least my friend saw it as I walked right past it oblivious once again to the mere existence of such a creature. And we finally made our way back to where we had entered the trail.
Now that it was a few hours later, we decided to check out the store since it was open, though it was full of knick-knacky things and souvenirs – nothing I was interested in. We went over to the large bell tower where we had parked and went inside to see some information on Stephen Foster, the man who wrote Old Folks at Home, the song that made the Suwannee River famous. The tower had a 97-bell carillon that would play every fifteen minutes and we could even hear it from the other end of the park while hiking.
The park was interesting, but we had failed to find the rapids that we had heard about, so we left to check out Big Shoals State Park which was only a couple miles away and also in White Springs, Florida.
ren3gade 