Savannah to Bonita Springs

We crossed the border into Georgia across the Savannah River and discovered another lovely, historic town.

We walked along the riverfront, then through some of the beautiful streets and city squares.

This very large sculpture was a fitting reminder of the importance of sea-going vessels for trade, transportation and cargo. The first steamship that crossed the Atlantic Ocean, the SS Savannah, took 27 days to reach Liverpool, England and sailed from this harbour on 22 May, 1819. Today, this is still a bustling port, with paddle boats and container ships regularly sharing the waterway.

As we traversed the coastal boardwalk, we passed several original cobble stone roads, and a fascinating sculpture of a waving girl with her dog.

The blurb on the statue told us that Florence Martus or Savannah’s waving girl, greeted ships entering the Savannah harbour by waving a cloth at every passing ship during the day and a lantern at night. Ships returned her greeting with 3 blasts from their horn. She continued her greeting every day for 44 years and according to the legend, she did not miss waving to one ship, day or night. Florence and her brother lived on Elba Island and operated the lighthouse. Her brother died in 1940 and she followed 3 years later. They are buried together, their epitaph reading, “In memory of the waving girl and her brother. Keepers of the lighthouse on Elba Island. Savannah River for 35 years.”

There are many legends to explain why she waved at every ship, however according to her own testimony, she lived on a remote island, with little to do but look at the ocean, she was lonely and bored, so watching for ships helped to pass the time.

As we walked around the town we also discovered Colonial Park, the burying ground for Savannah from 1750 until 1853 and many of the towns notable residents are interred here, including governors, Revolutionary soldiers, and war heroes. In 1896 it became a city park. It seems a strange place to convert to a park but even though it was quite hot and humid, there were people wandering through the graves and sitting on the seats.

The duelists grave was very interesting and worth reading the information sign. It seems that dueling was common as it’s not the first time that we’ve read about this method of ending an argument, permanently.

Savannah’s CBD is interconnected with 22 squares and parks over one square mile and they are iconic to the city. Each one has varied gardens, water features and statutory and are surrounded by beautiful churches and homes. We managed to walk through more than half.

Our camp for the night was at Fort McAllister State Park, on the Ogeechee River, another beautiful location among the salt marshes, waterways, forests and of course, the archaeological remains of the fort.

The morning was already hot and humid at 6am, but the light was beautiful for early morning photos.

On our return we noticed this interesting sign by the picnic area.

The information about the fort states that it is “the best-preserved earthwork fortification of the Confederacy”. It was hellishly hot and humid by the time we came back from our morning walk though, so we preferred a cool shower and the air-conditioned comfort of Joey, rather than walking around the fort in the sun. Just as well, because as we sat inside looking out we saw these deer right outside, grazing just next to Joey.

And there’s always a squirrel! Their gymnastics are amazing. Jumping between trees and branches and racing up and down tree trunks.

Continuing our coastal jaunt, we decided to take the bridge across to Jekyll Island. They have a great system for access and parking. Access to the island is regulated with a toll system with a charge of $15 per vehicle. Then, you can drive around and park without meters or restrictions.

We arrived at 7am, found a lovely, shaded spot for Joey and went for a walk around the “Millionaire’s Village,” along the beachfront past the gold course and several large resorts and then back through the middle of the island.

Jekyll Island is a State Park with about 1,000 residents and enforces a strict ‘conservation clause’ limiting future development so that 65 % will always remain a natural habitat.

Millionaire’s Village is an area of 240 acres, with 33 historic houses and buildings that date from the 1880s. It was an exclusive vacation destination for some of America’s rich and famous of the era, many of whom are still very recognisable names today, for example, the Pulitzers, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers and Goodyears.

Jekyll Island was first settled in 1733 as an outpost to protect the nearby Fort Frederica on St Simons Island by Major William Horton who also ran a prosperous plantation using slave labour.

These are the remains of the home he built in 1736. He resided here until his death in 1749 and is buried adjacent the house with other family members. The remains are a good example of the popular building method used during this era. Called ‘Tabby’, meaning “wall made of earth or masonry.” This method of construction was brought to America by the Spaniards and made from sand, lime and oyster shells collected from Indian burial mounds, burned, then poured into shapes.

By 1792, Christophe Poulain DuBignon purchased the island and harvested Sea Island Cotton successfully for another century.

In 1858 it had the dubious honour of being the location where one of the last groups of illegal slaves from Africa were landed from the Wanderer and sold in America.

A hunting club was built and in 1886, a number of the most prominent residents purchased the island outright and in 1904, and Munsey’s Magazine entitled it “the richest, the most exclusive, the most inaccessible club in the world.”

As travel and tourism opened up new opportunities, gradually the island’s wealthy inhabitants preferred villa’s in Europe to the small island and in 1947, it was sold to Georgia for $675,000 as a State Park.

We were also lucky enough to see some other locals while walking.

After a a wonderful morning on Jekyll Island, we continued on to the larger and more commercialised, St Simons Island and Fort Frederica.

James Oglethorpe, who founded the State of Georgia, built Fort Frederica to protect the region from the Spanish in 1736. Today it is a prominent archaeological site containing numerous foundation remains, a small museum and when we visited, was giving reenactments of musket firings.

The demonstration certainly gave us an insight into the difficulties of using muskets. Each loading for one firing took about a minute and the three times we saw them demonstrate, one or other misfired. We joked that you’d have to ask your enemy to stand still while you readied to shoot him! And of course, they weren’t using live rounds. There was just as much chance that a misfire would do the shooter as much damage and they were also most likely deaf the firings were so loud!

We very much enjoyed our coastal travels through the Carolina’s and Georgia and now we’ve crossed into Florida and the last state we’ll visit this year. I snapped this shot as we sailed on past in Joey but you get the idea!

Our first stop was Jacksonville and another lovely coastal morning boardwalk past some wonderful sculptures, buildings and murals. Including cows that were painted under a bridge. We had no idea, much like the horse statues in Duck, why the cows were so prominent but they were lovely murals.

The pelicans here are very much darker than ours and quite a bit smaller. They renge in colours from browns to dark greys like this one.

Next stop, a short drive to St Augustine, “the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European and African-American origin in the United States.” It was founded in 1565 by the Spanish, 42 years before the English colonised Jamestown and 55 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock and traces of this period are evident in the old part of the town. Although today, most of the remaining buildings are renovated shops and eateries aimed specifically to the tourist, there are 36 restored colonial buildings and 40 reconstructions.

This store had about 60 different flavours of saltwater taffy and we bought some to take home. It’s a popular ‘candy’, found in many tourist spots, especially in beach suburbs and dates from about 1880 when John Ross Edmiston who owned a postcard shop in Atlantic City, Edmiston, hired a man named David Bradley to sell taffy (or I imagine, toffee). The story goes that one night, ocean foam soaked the taffy and the following day, when a girl insisted on buying some, even after the soaking, and loved it, the name “salt water taffy” stuck. Even though there is no salt water in the recipe.

Excuse the reflection in the window but I wanted to get this picture of the machine that works the taffy.

The Cathedral of St Augustine is the oldest Catholic parish in America today, dating from 1565, although the church itself was not completed until 1797. The current cathedral was restored in 1888 after a fire and then further restored in 1965.

The morning we visited, there was an orchestra doing a rehearsal for a performance so we sat and listened for a while.

Horse and carriage rides for tourists are iconic in New Orleans but we didn’t realise that they were also prevalent in some of the smaller tourist towns we’ve visited. Here, this fellow was waiting in historic area of St. Augustine, which we walked around early the following morning..

We also visited the iconic St. Augustine fort.

The Castillo de San Marcos is the oldest masonry fort in America, established by the Spanish. Construction began in 1672 and was completed in 1695. Its location placed it in an optimum position to protect the area from pirates and colonial attacks because any ship entering the harbour had to enter forwards, through a narrow channel. This meant they were incredibly vulnerable to attack because there was not enough room to broadside and return firing of their cannons towards the fort.

The fort was constructed from coquina, a locally sourced shell stone which has lasted through hundreds of years of weathering. The fort changed into British control in 1763, after the Treaty of Paris was signed, briefly returned to Spanish control in 1783 and then was transferred to the United States in 1821.

Today, it’s one of the tourist drawcards for St.Augustine and provides a fascinating glimpse into the regions history.

After a full morning sightseeing around St Augustine and the Castillo de San Marcos, we continued our coastal journey south, stopping briefly in “the Birthplace of speed,” Ormond Beach.

Its fame was relatively short lived, with the last speed record run in January 1906. In 1911, Indianapolis became the venue for racing and Daytona Beach eclipsed Ormond Beach, becoming the precursor to NASCAR.

We continued our drive south, taking in more of the scenic intracoastal waterways and an interesting little botanic garden and sugar mill.

Originally farmed by Patrick Dean from 1804, he grew sugar cane, cotton and rice. The property changed hands several times over the ensuing years, the mill was burned down and rebuilt. It was an army camp during the Civil War when the kettle drums were used to produce salt for ammunition. Eventually, the plantation land was sold off into small lots and the mill became a tourist attraction as an amusement park in 1939.

Bequeathed to Volusia County in 1963, it was left neglected until 1985 when it gained its new lease on life as a small botanical garden with the remains of the sugar mill protected.

Leaving this little gem, we headed out along the coast again, our destination, Cape Canaveral to view Elon Musk’s Falcon rocket launch to deposit starlink satellites in orbit.

The viewing spot we chose was Playalinda Beach in Merritt Island National Wildlife refuge. To beat the crowds and considering Joey isn’t a small vehicle, to get a parking spot, we were at the gates for opening at 7am and picked a great park about as close as they allow you to be.

The launch was scheduled for 1.15pm so we saw the sunrise and went for a walk down the beach before it got too hot.

We even saw some fresh turtle tracks from the night before. Between May and August predominately Loggerhead turtles but also Green and Leatherbacks lumber ashore to lay as many as 100 eggs. Teams of volunteers check the beach every sunrise to record the nests.

We walked as far as the no go zone on the beach, then retreated to Joey as the temperature warmed up.

The launch went off on time and without a hitch, taking only a few minutes from blast off to disappearing into the atmosphere. A local who regularly viewed the launches said that this rocket would launch its payload, then land 600 miles off the coast on a platform before being retrieved and reused.

So, within 5 minutes it was all over. We chatted with some other tourists for a while, a couple from Sweden on their honeymoon who were coming back in a coupe of days to view another launch and a couple from Brazil who had also bought an RV to tour America. After exchanging travel tales we headed off again, getting closer to our eventual destination of Bonita Springs.

While sailing along the Queensland coast and the Whitsunday’s we met some wonderful people. One amazing couple, Brad and Gloria, had been sailing full time around the world for 26 years. Reaching the end of their sailing adventures in Bundaberg, Queensland we sailed with them down to Scarborough and became great friends. Their home in Bonita Springs, Florida was to be our final destination for this years American adventure. As we neared the areas they were familiar with, they gave us some fantastic suggestions for destinations to visit. Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium was one that we thoroughly enjoyed.

Having its beginnings in 1955, when “Shark Lady” Dr. Eugenie Clark began a small marine lab in Florida, today it is an an international marine science enterprise that combines research, science-based conservation and facilities open to the public to expand our knowledge of the oceans and their creatures. 

There are two separate areas in Sarasota, the marine laboratory and aquarium housing numerous different habitats including a large shark and fish aquarium and the marine mammal centre which houses otters, alligators, turtles, river habitats and a manatee.

Some of the creatures are hands on, like this stingray which you are encouraged to touch as they glide around and others, well, they’re best left alone.

The following day we checked into our RV park for our last week in the USA and caught up with Brad and Gloria. We had a wonderful afternoon wandering around Naples and celebrated Brad’s birthday. On Thursday morning we had an early morning trip to check on the turtle nestings on the beaches and learned some wonderful information from Gloria and the other volunteers.

On Friday we discovered an interesting walk around some playing fields and ponds in the Bonita Springs area, coming across this sign.

Did I mention this was adjacent sports playing fields and athletics tracks?

Something we’ve noticed that’s a constant in Florida, is water! Everywhere there are ponds, swamps and waterways, many natural like these around the sports fields but just as many surrounding housing estates and gated communities. it’s hardly a wonder that they have an abundance of critters that call the water home.

That afternoon, which was also my birthday, we had lunch at Bonita Springs Botanic Gardens before having a walk around some of the beautiful plants, until the heat and humidity got the better of us.

There were so many beautiful plants and blooms! Then we discovered this wonderful sculpture. Called “Circle of Friends” it was very apt since we were visiting with wonderful friends!

And to top off a fantastic birthday, Gloria made me THE BEST Hummingbird cake!!

And yes it tasted as good as it looks!

The following day we visited Revs Institute, a private car museum whose blurb states it is an “educational institution dedicated to the study, preservation, conservation, and restoration of historically significant automobiles”. The vehicles they house include some of the rarest professionally restored vehicles to their original constructions from 1896 – 1995.

Aside from the cars being so unique and in such pristine condition, being indoors in air conditioning was wonderful. The heat without the humidity would not have been too bad but with the high humidity, by lunchtime it was uncomfortable being in the sun. Because of this, we were walking very early in the mornings to escape the worst of the humidity.

We found some wonderful places to walk around Bonita Springs and throughout the gated communities in the area.

Bonita Springs township has some amazing murals and sculptures.

But some very strange speed limits around the gated communities.

And everywhere there is water!

Last time we were in America we arrived at LAX on July 4th. Independence Day so we didn’t experience the event. This time, we spent it with Brad and Gloria who took us to a fantastic Asian restaurant for dinner, then we watched fireworks from the beach at Naples.

The sunset was outstanding.

And the locals turned out in there thousands.

And then, just like that, our 2024 USA adventure came to an end. We had some of the most amazing experiences and absolutely loved our journey across the southern states. Bring on 2025 and our next American adventure in the eastern states. Meanwhile, a very long trek awaits us. Thank you so much to Brad and Gloria for their wonderful hospitality, to see you again next year!

And to those following our travels, tune in again next year for part two of our jaunt around the USA.