Swamp Island Drive

The weather was perfect for our drive yesterday, and we practically had the place to ourselves. Over the course of the whole day we saw just two other cars, and three other people. Pretty nice.

The Swamp Island drive is a slow 7-mile loop of driving, biking, and/or walking, and there is a guide corresponding to numbered markers seen along the way. Our first stop was the Canal Diggers Trail, a short 3/4 mile loop, where we could see the Suwanee Canal that was built in a failed attempt to drain the swamp.

After 4 years and 12 miles of digging, the company abandoned the project due to lack of funds and unstable sand banks. Today, the canal is the main access point for the water trails on the east side of the swamp.

A short distance in, we came upon a bridge, but we wouldn't cross over it until later on.

Mainly what we saw here were wall-to-wall saw palmettos and longleaf pines.

My friend Pat asked about why there were fewer longleaf pines, and I didn't know at the time. Our guide addressed that.

Indeed, we could see areas of reforestation. In the image below, you can see a strip of newer ones near the middle and above the band of rust colored underbrush.

The saw palmettos are interesting. They are common in the Southeast United States. The plant provides foraging, nesting, and protective cover for over 100 different species of wildlife. Small mammals may take cover underneath the dense leaves, while the plant also produces berries that provide nutrition for raccoons, gopher tortoises, black bears, and some birds.

This pond was dug to supply sand for the building of the road. It can be a popular area to observe alligators, although we saw none there yesterday.

In the middle of the image below, you can see a bat box, built to attract bats. According to our pamphlet, they have been able to find adequate roosts in hollow trees and they have never used it. Clearly they are very ungrateful.

The next trail was a short quarter mile.

Here, we were able to see many trees with white bands on the trunks. My image doesn't show them well, and so I've put a red mark near the ones we could see. They were visible all around us.

They represent cavity trees for red-cockaded woodpeckers. They depend on the longleaf pine forest and require mature trees that are at least 60 years old. Loss of mature longleaf pine forest has caused the species to become endangered. Since these woodpeckers use living trees, it takes them longer to complete a cavity than other woodpeckers that use dead trees. Here are two of the cavities in the image below. The larger cavity near the bottom is about the size of a softball.

In the image below, you can see that this cavity has been given some human assistance, and we saw a few of these...no explanation was given.

We didn't see any woodpeckers along the trail, but I found this image on the internet.

This next image is a hooded pitcherplant. It's one of three carnivorous plants in the Okefenokee. I showed you the bladderwort in yesterday's post. The other kind is the butterwort, which I can't identify. We saw the pitcherplants growing in narrow ponds along the road called "borrow ditches" where material for the road was dug. The ditches were rich in aquatic animal and plant life, but not much that was photoworthy beyond the lowly pitcherplant. This one was about 8 inches tall. You can read more about it at the link I've given you back there.

From there, we traveled to the Chesser Island Homestead, and this was simply fascinating.

The homestead was built by Tom and Iva Chesser in 1927 and it remains undisturbed. It's almost as if the family is just away on an errand and might return at any time. On the path leading to the homestead, we saw this bench, added recently, judging by its flawless condition.

It was easy to get a feeling for what it was like to be an early settler on the edge of the swamp.

Approaching the front door of the house, it looked like this. Sugar cane was their cash crop, but they also hunted, kept livestock, tended beehives, and had a substantial garden.

Near the front door was this plaque.

The house was locked, but I used the "night scene" setting on my camera and placed the lens directly against window glass to take the pictures that follow. What a thrill to see the inside, still looking so much as if the family is residing there in the present.

I took pictures through every window I could reach, although there were a few that were over my head unless I climbed on some part of the structure. I resisted the urge. Look through the doorway in the middle of the image below. I think there's one of those old country stoves on the far wall.

You're gonna love seeing all the quilts.

I couldn't quite see the quilt in the foreground of the image below.

By raising the camera and tilting it downward, I could get a better look.

Here's the same room. Look at the clothes hanging in the closet!

This is a different room. I used to have one of those dressers on the left side. The mirror was missing from mine.

Same room, different window.

Next window over.

I couldn't see into the kitchen very well because I couldn't reach the windows there.

Outside was a storage shed.

Inside were shelves of canned goods.

They even had food in them!

Next door was the smokehouse.

It smelled like a smokehouse in here...as if someone had been smoking meat just the day before.

There was a fire pit at the bottom and a wooden rod extending across the width of the structure where meat would have hung.

Remember when we visited the old homesteads in Cades Cove? There the homes were built on cornerstones. Here, the cornerstones were actually large blocks of wood cut from trees. Cypress is resistant to rot, and so it probably would have been as good as stone.

Also, we saw this hollow log well.

Looking inside the well, indeed, it was a large hollowed out log.

Although the well wasn't working here, there was one nearby that was. I've always wanted to pump water from one of these water pumps, but this is the first time I found one that was actually functional. It was easy to raise the lever...harder to push it back down.

Here is where the family made syrup. They also made turpentine from pine resin.

Recall the process of making molasses from sorghum, and syrup was made in a similar fashion, only substituting sugar cane for the sorghum stalks.

Around the far side of the house, it looked like this. Here were a couple of windows I couldn't reach with my camera unless I climbed on those fragile structures.

There are some things about these old structures that are so delightfully rustic that I simply must take pictures of them. Below is the latch on the corn crib door.

There wasn't much of interest to see in the corn crib, but standing next to it, I could see the homestead from the opposite side. To the left and hidden behind the corn crib were a hog pen, a chicken cook, and a large garden plot.

We wandered around there for about 45 minutes and then moved down the road to our last stop at the Chesser Island Boardwalk.

The hike led to a 360 degree view of Chesser Prairie and Seagrove Lake. We'd visited Chesser Prairie on our boat tour the day before.

Along the way we saw a turtle, but it was far back in the weeds, and my picture wasn't very good. Also, off in the distance we saw a heron of some kind...or possibly an anhinga...it was hard to tell at such a great distance. Eventually we came to the fire tower.

All along the way we'd been accompanied by these small lizards. They were quick and camera shy, but I was finally able to capture one beneath the tower.

There was a congregation of them around the first landing, and I was able to get in a little closer. There was another that was bright lime green, but he was too quick for my shutter finger.

Looking out from the top of the tower, we could see this...

and this...

and this...

In the distance, we could see this monster lounging in the sun. This was the largest alligator we've seen. We estimate him to be around 10-12 feet in length.

Walking back we noticed evidence of the 2011 Honey Prairie Fire, started by a lightening strike. Wildfires are a natural occurrence in the Okefenokee (and elsewhere), and actually benefit the swamp and the wildlife that live there. Here, we could see the remains of a boardwalk that burned in the fire.

And that was our day on the Swamp Island Drive. It was very interesting, and we loved the solitude.

Today we have a chill day planned for ourselves. Mike needs to repair the cord for the back-up camera on his truck. Sadly, he neglected to unhook it when he unhitched the fifth wheel here and ripped the plug end right off the cord. He's an engineer. He can probably fix it. I'm going to get some sewing done. Tomorrow, we'll be moving on to Tybee Island, near Savannah, and we'll spend the Christmas weekend there.