day tripping pt 2

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With growing confidence that the car actually might keep going after its years of neglect, I set of on another day trip into the wilds of Florida.
Actually the most wild animal I saw all day was a turtle crossing the road, but its a start.
Probally the biggest year round danger in Florida is being mowed down by old folk in mobility scooters, snakes, spiders and gators are nothing.!
This time I headed north from Jacksonville up the coast, stopping to look at anything that looked interesting along the way.
The coast along here is made up largely of a series of low sand islands with great beaches, all in all a very pleasant place to build a house except of course when the occasional Hurricane drops in.
First stop of the day was the Kingsley Plantation not far north of Jacksonville, this is of down a partially unsealed road which goes through a forrested area.
Entry is free, my kind of place.
This is an old cotton plantation now administered by the NPS and is in a very scenic location, the main buildings have been restored and some of the slave quarters have also been restored to show what they were like when the plantation was in its prime.
A place that is worth a visit if you are into having a quiet wander around and avoiding the tourist hoards.
A word of caution though, if you wander amongst the trees watch out for the large spider webs which seem to be made out of some sort of wire and are occupied by spiders large enough to carry off small children, at least the one I met looked that big.
There is a couple of regional parks here as well offering access to the beach, but if the beach is all you are after its best to go further along as they charge you to get in and there is pleanty of free beaches around.
Carrying on north dodging turtles on the road as I went (2) I came to Amelia island, very nice, very expensive looking (not sure if it is, didn't hang around long enough to find out).
Further progress from there brought me as far up the coast road as I could go and the target for the afternoon, Fort Clinch.
This fort has an interesting history, it spent many years as a work in progress and went through a few owners (The rebels, Yankees, and was used in WW2 as a base) each owner doing a bit more to it but never finishing it as the wars that it was being built for never quite made it to it.
Is still unfinished, but is largely complete though, one of the few brick forts ever built.
This on the edge of a town called fernandina, nice place, a bit touristy, nice fudge shop.......
Home for the day from there.

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Photos

Main Building
The origional plantation owners house at Kingsley plantation.

Restored Salve quarters
Many of these were arranged in a large semi circle

Fort Clinch
Main courtyard

Outer wall
Couple of the guns, never fired.

Comments

[Bean]

Aren't turtles an endangered species? I hope you havent' run any over stickboy?