Kayak Rack and Hunting Island State Park

From Crooked River State Park Georgia to
Hunting Island State Park S.C.

It was relatively warm this morning at 55 when we got up.  I ran over 5 miles mostly along the park’s trails and when I got back David had put the kayaks and the bikes on the car.  We had hoped to leave about 11 but just as we were getting ready to head to the dump this RV drove in with a home made kayak rack on top. 

I had spent many weeks researching how to put the kayaks on the brave rather than on the car to no avail.  The only RV kayak rack sort of thing would attach kayaks 10’ or less in length to the ladder in the back.  10’ kayaks are not great for animal watching as they don’t track straight ahead and can’t be held in place so trading my great Wilderness Cape Lookout 13.5’ for a shorter one wasn’t going to happen.

So we went over to meet these folks before we left and talked to them about how they created this and how it worked.  Very interesting and friendly people Jim and Jen Grinsel.  They aren’t full timers yet but it sounds like they’d like to be.  Hope we'll see them again on the road and have more time to get to know them.

We didn’t actually leave town until about 1:30 after dumping and picking up subway for lunch and eating it.   Then it was I95 North – boo hoo -  to South Carolina and some narrow 2 laners into Beaufort and across some interesting bridges.  The cement curb was about 2" to the right of the white line and these were just barely full size lanes.  Holding my breath.

We did arrive with no mishaps in Hunting Island State Park in the South Carolina Low Country.  Here’s a map of its location. (Click to Enlarge) It’s 5000 acres on the Atlantic Ocean and I can hardly wait to explore it tomorrow.

The traditional out the front window shot.  It's hard to pick a site on line from a campground map without seeing the site but in a number of these ocean front parks, without a reservation, you won't be staying there.

I greatly prefer, if you have to make a reservation, that your reservation is not for a specific site, but for the one you choose when you get there.  That's how Crooked River does it.

We arrived around 5:00 after driving 171 miles including a stop for gas.   That’s a longer trip than I like but sadly we are no longer in total leisure mode at this point.  Here are a couple other shots of our site #90.  

There are 200 sites and they are close together but as you can see it isn’t exactly a parking lot.  There are winding streets and treed sites.  They say this is South Carolina’s most popular state park and I believe it since I tried to get reservations here for weeks ahead of time on our way down but could not get them so we stopped at Skidaway Island State Park near Savannah in Georgia instead..  There sure are a lot of other very nice ocean front South Carolina State Parks so I’ll have to judge for myself whether it is the best.

Check back tomorrow to see how our look at the other 199 sites and the 5000 acres goes.  Although since 3000 of those are wetlands, we may not get to those just yet.  J