1361 October 22, 2026 Cumberland Island National Seashore

Crooked River State Park is another great place for a morning walk.  Tim walked and saw this bumper sticker.

I walked and saw this hawk.

We left the campground at 10am and drove to nearby Saint Mary’s.  We took our bikes off the Jeep and made our way to the Ferry Terminal. 

We boarded the Cumberland Queen and enjoyed a 45-minute boat ride across the river to Cumberland Island, a barrier island that is designated as a National Seashore.  We could see horses on the beaches and I started to get excited!

We arrived and hopped on our bikes.  It was a lovely ride from the ferry dock to the southern end of the island.  The dirt road was mostly hard packed with a few areas of soft sand.

We went to the southern end and walked around the Dungeness Ruins.  This was the summer home of Thomas and Lucy Carnegie. 

Feral horses greeted us at the entrance.

We continued past the ruins to Raccoon Keys.  We were there all by ourselves.  It was marshy all the way to the beach.  There were more wild horses.

We found a picnic table under the shade of a huge and gnarled live oak tree.

We made an attempt to go to Dungeness Beach.  The road became too soft with deep sand and we abandoned our bikes and trudged through the sand.

At long last, we came to a boardwalk that took us around a very wet area.

We walked to the end of the boardwalk and came to a super muddy trail that would take us out to the beach.  I opted out first and sat on a bench to dump the cups of sand out of my shoes.  Tim continued on but didn’t get very far before he found the trail flooded.

We biked back though the maritime forest and traveled past our ferry dock entrance.  We had walked almost 13,000 steps, some in deep sand, and then biked about 7 miles.  I had done enough for today!  I found a stump and sat while Tim biked on for another ½ a mile and then he quit as well.

We found a bench in the shade where we waited for our ride back to the mainland.

It was a wonderful field trip and someday, I would like to come back and see the northern portion.

Our return ferry got us back to Saint Mary’s at 5:45pm.  We had been to Saint Mary’s Harbor Restaurant last fall and we decided to have dinner there tonight. 

Now as I write, my legs are tired but I am happy.  We were outside in a truly beautiful and wild place and I was grateful to have this experience!