Hiking and Camping through Rural Georgia

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Spring break for a South Floridian doesn’t mean the same thing to a person from the other forty-nine states.  For starters, our winter season (in name only) means lows in the mid 50’s for a couple weeks at the most.  We hardly ever need a jacket.  Hell, shorts and flip flops are still preferred winter attire.  We don’t get to experience the leaves changing back to green.  The flowers are always in bloom.  The beach is always calm and sunny.  So, my motivation to leave for spring time is usually to experience the mountains of our subtropical neighbors since Florida is expensively flat. This time, last year, I explored the Caribbean coast of Colombia for the first time.  But this year, I decided to explore a little pocket of Southeast Georgia.  For starters, my girlfriend moved to the US from Colombia in February, so we figured this would be an excellent way for her to experience some of my Southern roots. 

WHY SOUTHEAST GEORGIA?

For anyone who has spent time in both South Georgia and South Florida, then you know these two places are a world of difference.  And for a Colombian, South Florida is not exactly a culture shock.  So many Latinos have made South Florida home that you can get by never uttering a word in English.  But South Georgia, just six hours north by car, is strictly English.  The rural life of Southern Georgia is starkly different from the cosmopolitan feel of Miami.  I always tell visitors to the US, that want to experience the “real” United States, should do a road trip through the South or Midwest over places like New York, L.A., or Las Vegas.

My experience, in this part of the South has been extremely limited.  I spent two years stationed in Charleston, South Carolina while in the Air Force, but back then I never explored further than the city and on occasion Atlanta. My time in rural Georgia was just driving along the interstate to visit my grandmother back in Alabama.  It wasn’t until 2010, that I really experienced any part of Southeast Georgia.  A group of my friends here in Miami decided to visit a place called Hostel in the Forest near Brunswick.  All we knew was there were some tree houses in a forest that you could stay.  We made the trip over a three-day weekend and fell in love with that special place.  Sadly, I hadn’t been back in nearly eight years because I’ve been busy seeing new places abroad.  This year, I wanted to go back so Lorena could experience this one of a kind community.  So, we made reservations for spring break. 

BRIEF HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND ISLAND

There are a series of barrier islands that line the coast of South Carolina and Southeast Georgia that is known as the Low Country.  They are about as remote as it gets in this part of the South because they have been isolated from much of the mainland for centuries.  These islands are known as the Gullah islands and have retained a unique culture from the mainland.  Many of the Gullah islands were populated with plantation, where enslaved West Africans were brought to specifically grow rice.  They were expert rice farmers who brought and maintained much of their tradition and culture on the islands.  Cumberland is one of these Gullah islands.  But it is extremely unique because of it’s unlikely residents and continued isolation from the mainland.  Firstly, evidence shows indigenous people shows human settlement goes back 4,000 years.  The first Europeans to arrive here were the Spanish, who claimed the island as part of Spanish Florida in the 1550, which they named San Pedro.  French pirates drove the colony out in the 1680s and by 1730’s English colonists settled in.  Cumberland never really saw major economic development during the 16^th and 17^th centuries.  It held more strategic importance for colonial powers in establishing a military presence along the frontiers of their American colonial claims.

After the American Revolutionary War, Cumberland began to experience economic development through agriculture.  Slave labor was brought in to labor on the plantations to cultivate cotton.  The cotton gin debuted on the island back in 1793 and the father of Confederate General Robert E. Lee was once buried on the island.

During the 19^th Century, the United States was experiencing rapid industrialization and powerful industrialist families like the Carnegies were looking to build their winter mansions far from the New England cold.  Cumberland island was perfect.  Twenty miles long, it was larger than Manhattan island.  The isolated from the Georgia mainland, made it extremely private. The wild life, white sand beaches, and shade coverage from magnolia and pine trees made it a pristine place to get away. 

After the American Civil War, many of the white residents left the island for the mainland when Union forces occupied the island, but many of the former slaves stayed on and built a community on the north end of the island. Many of them would work for the Carnegie families as domestics, landscapers, farmers, and laborers.

By the 1955, the Carnegie family began negotiations with the federal government to transfer their lands to the government, when it would eventually be a part of the National Park Service in 1972.

Today, a very small percentage of the island remains in private hands, but all private land owners have agreed to transfer the land to the National Park Service when they die. 

CUMBERLAND ISLAND NATIONAL PARK

Today, this magnificently beautiful and historically rich island is rarely experienced considering what it haves to offer.  Maybe that is the charm.  Only three hundred visitors are allowed a day.  The vast majority just come for a day trip by ferry about a forty-five minute ferry ride from the St. Mary’s on the Georgia mainland. You really have to book at months in advance if you want to guaranteed access to the closest camp sites to the landing dock (less than a mile).  For us, those option were not available even with more than a month advance booking. The two campsites we booked were five and ten miles north of the landing dock. 

There is no transportation offered on the island, unless you book an island tour with the park service.  If you want to see the island yourself without a tight schedule on a cramped mini van then hiking and camping is your best bet.  You can camp for a maximum of seven days on the island, but for us we only camped for three days and two nights.  It wasn’t enough to see everything because we hiked everywhere.  In total, we hiked over thirty miles in the three days.  We arrived during a freak rain storm that felt like a category 2 hurricane.  It happened to be a blessing in disguise because the temperature was cool, which kept the mosquitoes away. 

After eight hours, we finally reached our campsite of Brickhill Bluff about ten miles north of the landing dock.  We took our time, stopping at Plum Mansion for a private tour of the plantation and lunch.  With the exception of another couple, we were virtually alone on the beach.  We were surrounded by fields of sea grass, white sand, and canopy of twisted magnolia trees.  We watched dolphins and fishing boats from our hammock.  Campfires are not allowed at this campsite, but gas burn portable stoves are.  We enjoyed a dinner of rice, beans, and sausages.  Too tired to do much else, we crashed early.  It can be a bit eerie being that isolated in a place that resembles the “Upside Down” from Stanger Things.  In the night, Lorena jumped up from a dream of someone pulling her from the tent.  Don’t know if the island is haunted, but she definitely felt a supernatural presence. 

 POPPING THE QUESTION IN A LITTLE BLACK CHURCH

The next morning after breakfast, we hike to the north end of the island about five miles away.  This is where the black residents of the island stayed after slavery ended.  They called it the settlement.  The community resettled in the 1930s to the northern end of Camden county on the Georgia mainland, where they became very successful farmers.  Their church remains and now is maintained by the National Park Service.  I had decided a few days before, this would be the place I’d propose to Lorena.  It just seemed a fitting place for a marriage proposal.  It’s such a simple structure and the people who gave life to this spiritual place come from humble means.  The journey to even get to this place is difficult but rewarding, like I imagine married life will be.  A six-hour road trip, forty-five minute ferry ride, fifteen mile hike to get to this black church.  I couldn’t think of a better setting to get on one knee.  Of course, Lorena thought I was joking but soon realized this was the real deal.  Happy to report, she say “Si”!  and we even jumped the broom, which conveniently, one was laying in the corner of the church.  I’m guessing others have taken to the idea of getting married.  The most famous couple to elope in this church was John F. Kennedy Jr and Carloyne Bessette.

FERAL HORSES AND OTHER ANIMALS ON THE ISLAND

Afterward, we returned to our campsite, packed up, and heading for the second campsite another five miles south at Hickory Hill.  It was along this leg of our hike that we got to see feral horses.  The story goes, during colonial times, the domesticated horses brought to the island by Spanish and English were left to their own devices.  Today, they are very popular among the park visitors.  I was told by a ranger that there are 141 at last count.  Exploring the island by foot, obviously, offers the most intimate way of experiencing the plants and wildlife.  We were able to see four different types of eco-systems (sand dunes, hard wood, soft wood, swampy marshes) and animals, like cranes, dolphins, armadillos, alligators, raccoons, wild boar, vultures, loggerheads, ghost crabs, and too many shellfish and birds to name.

Cumberland Island is about as special of a place as they come.  The fact it is only accessible by boat and a national park that limits the number of visitors to 300 a day through day trips or camping means that this place will remain pristine.

BACK TO THE FOREST

Less than an hour away north on the interstate in Brunswick is where we decided to enjoy our post-Cumberland experience.  A forest bed and breakfast founded by an international bunch of hippies in the early 1970s has flourished for over four decades.  I had been eager to return here since I first visited in 2010, and this was the perfect location to chill after thirty days of hiking.  We booked a month in advance for a private tree house cabin to do nothing but exist alongside the trees, birds, and chickens that call this place home.

It still feels the same as it did nearly ten years ago.  The people are kind, liberal, and full of free hugs.  It’s a mix of old, young, but mostly twenty and thirty somethings.  No more than thirty people stay on the property with about fifteen “tree houses”.  Everything is sustainable, which is a great model to live by.  I’ve stayed in sustainable communities from Thailand to Israel, and the people and model of contributing and sharing as a family is central to how these places work.  No electronics in public spaces help keep people engaged with one another.  Skinny dipping in the lake, walking around barefoot, doing your business in a compost toilet, showering under the trees is freedom!  Breaking bread each night with total strangers, giving thanks in a kumbya circle, and sharing in the preparation, eating, and cleanup of a vegan dinner is super cool.  Afterwards, when the only light from the moon and campfire, old and young alike, American and foreigners play pool, make music, and drink in a way most of us rarely experience back home.