Click on a photo to enlarge it.
On Monday, we made an early start and went just over the border into Florida to pick up an armload of information
from the welcome centre (and some great orange juice!) and then went back into Georgia to a campground. We had had
our post forwarded to us and it arrived just before we did. We made the mistake of hooking up before we had read our
post, because we found out that we had only 2 days to pay the yearly registration fee for Winnie! We thought it was
due at the end of November which is why we had got our post forwarded. So we had to unhook and drive off to the local
post office to get a money order, copy our insurance and send it off to California, right across the other side of
the country, hoping it would get there in 2 days!
Our next mistake, was to try and top up our back battery with distilled water. Its difficult to get to without
disconnecting it and taking the whole thing out (its heavy and awkward). So we pulled it out as far as we could and
used a syringe to get the water into it. We realised the mistake 2 days later when the battery didn´t work at all!
At the campsite we were hooked up to the electric and so we didn´t notice anything whilst we spent most of the day
cleaning Winnie and working on the computer.
Our third mistake was picking a campsite in a town famous for train spotting as 60 trains a day go through it, and
our campsite was between two train crossings. The tooting went on through the night, 3 times an hour! Even our
earplugs didn´t help!!
Consequently, on Tuesday, we were really tired and got up late. By the time we´d finished working on the computer,
tidied everything up, and had showers, we didn´t leave the campsite until 1-45pm. As we started Winnie's engine,
we heard a funny whirring sound and didn´t know what it was or where it came from. So we dismissed it and drove to
the library to do an update on our website.
We got an email from Andrea, a friend from Hamburg who we´d met on our South American tour in 2002, to say she had
booked a flight to Orlando and would be joining us for about 4 weeks on the 19th November, in 10 days. We´d only
sent her an email to her yesterday, to tell her what our rough travel plans were going to be for the next few months.
She´s a quick worker!
After picking up supplies we heard the whirring noise again - from the place where our radio console is normally
attached, only the console wasn´t attached, and hadn´t been since we´d heard the sound! We didn´t have time to
investigate because we wanted to drive to Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, a large swamp area in southern
Georgia and it was already getting late. We managed to get to the visitor centre in time to see a good film about
the area, promoting the visual impressions but very little information. Then we did a 1.5 mile boardwalk at a
quick pace, as the park was closing, to see egrets and some alligators!
Before leaving, we just had time to talk to the people who run adventure tours, canoeing etc, to ask about putting
our canoe into the water and where to go etc. The woman was really helpful and even offered to let us have one of
their canoes for free to save us having to get ours off the roof and back on! Super! She even told us about a local
recreation area where we could get an electric hook up for free because the season has finished!
So we drove the 8 miles and got our free hook up. We could still hear the trains but fortunately they were in the
distance so didn´t disturb us too much. On Wednesday, we got up at 7am and drove back to the swamp and decided to
take a look at our back battery which we believed was the cause of the whirring sound from the radio console which
was telling us that it didn´t have any power. We had the horrible thought that we had mistakenly put normal water in
there! But we checked the bottle and found that it was distilled after all. But the problem was that we had obviously
pulled the battery out too far and one of the connections had broken off!
The first thing we had to do was to get rid of the corrosion with baking powder. The helpful staff from the adventure
tour place had also suggested coca cola!! Apparently it works wonders on corrosion - it´s probably not too good for
stomach linings though!! But we still couldn´t get our battery fixed as we needed to take Winnie to an electrical
workshop about 12 miles away.
So we got our stuff ready and went on a 4.5 hour canoe trip along the waterways of the swamp. Very peaceful. We saw
egrets, great blue herons and red wing hawks. We also saw an alligator that came swimming towards us but slowed down
and stopped when it saw us. We did the same. Then for the next few minutes it was like a Mexican stand off!! All of
us staring at each other! Finally the alligator got bored and dived underwater!
Kayaking in the Okefenokee NWR.
After canoeing, we drove off and got our battery fixed, a new connector for $6 and then bought some anti corrosion
stuff and a metal brush to clean it properly and to try and avoid the problem repeating itself. Then it was back to
the recreation area for another free hookup. We actually stayed for four nights for free!
On Thursday, we did a few of the trails in the park and also went back to the boardwalk to see more alligators and
we even saw a really sweet frog in the ladies toilet - bright green with big eyes. That evening, Kirsten worked on
the photos and Helen spent hours working out some kind of plan for the 4 weeks that Andrea will be with us - not easy!
On Friday it rained most of the day so we couldn´t go canoeing. On Saturday we drove round to the west side of
Okefenokee where Stephen C. Foster State Park is. We stopped at what we thought was a visitor centre and Helen got out
to see if it was open. Within minutes she got surrounded by four dogs who then chased Winnie as we drove off! At the
state park, we did a short boardwalk and wandered around the visitor centre and interpretative centre. The campground
was full so we drove out of the park and found somewhere on the side of the road (no trains!!)
On Sunday we paid $20 for a 1.5 hour boat trip in the swamp. It was really cold and we both had two fleece jackets on.
It´s been a long time since we had to wear both of them! There were just the two of us and our guide, who started off
on a very monotone speech about the swamp. He might as well have just played a tape recorder! The first thing he said
was that if we wanted to see alligators, then we had picked the wrong day. We saw at least 10 which is as many as you
normally see on a good day! The 2,000 year old Cypress trees were logged years ago but there are still a lot of 900 year
old trees in the park.
Stephen C. Foster State Park.
As we left the state park we were stopped at a police road block and had to show our drivers licenses for the first
time. We drove to Jacksonville in Florida and parked up on a Walmart car park for the night.
