As soon as you leave the ranger station and head down the trail, you enter a remarkable forest of palmetto plants and live oak trees with Spanish moss hanging from the branches.
After the forest, you come to a boardwalk through the dunes,
And then onto a pristine beach that stretches as far as you can see in either direction.
After a walk on the beach, we headed inland to the salt marsh and saw these men casting nets to catch baitfish.
Soon we were back in the forest and we encountered some of the wild horses that roam Cumberland. They were released from Lucy Carnegie's stable upon her death and have had free reign of the island ever since.
The horses are wild, but seem comfortable with the tourists they encounter.
We walked to the south end of the island and viewed the ruins of the Dungeness Mansion. The mansion was rebuilt by Thomas and Lucy Carnegie in 1884 on the site of the original mansion which was built in 1783 by Nathanael Greene. The Carnegies occupied Dungeness and acquired much of the island as their "winter estate." The mansion burned in 1959. The Carnegie family sold most of the island to the federal government and in 1972 Congress created Cumberland Island National Seashore.
After our "self guided walking tour," we arranged to take a van ride with a ranger and toured the north end of the island.
We toured the Plum Orchard mansion which was built for one of the Carnegie children.
We continued to the north end and saw the First African Baptist Church which is where JFK Junior was married to Carolyn Bessette in1996. The chapel is amazingly small and has no electricity. It was fun to imagine such an elegant event in this building.
The church is located in the area called the Settlement, which became home to freed slaves. The last resident moved away in the late 1950's.
After a long day in the van bouncing over the unimproved dirt roads, it was back to the boat for another sunset.
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Location:Cumberland Island, Georgia
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