27.08.2012 – 27.08.2012  29 °C

We didn’t bother to get crackin’ this morning because the weather has closed in and it is RAINING.. In fact, it was raining so hard that we actually got a bit wet packing the car today (even with the car backed right up to the door of the motel room!) With the weather so nasty we weren’t about to go site seeing in Savannah but we did go for a little drive to take a look at the main park area in the town.

The rain had subsided by the time we made it to the park, but the air was still pretty humid so of course my camera fogged up immediately… Sadly, it didn’t un-fog the whole time we wandered around the park, pretty disappointing as the park is filled with my favourite oak trees and Spanish moss! In fairness, I’m having no luck capturing their beauty (on all of my previous attempts) so I guess it wasn’t that big a loss that the camera lens was totally useless this morning!

The rain returned almost as soon as we left the park, and considering we weren’t really that impressed with Savannah we decided to spend the day driving the whole length of Georgia to Kingsland (on the Floridian border).

Smoko today saw us stop at a nameless roadside stop that was next to a flowing inlet to a marsh. That in itself isn’t that exciting.. the bugs however, were interesting… We’d stopped 10mins earlier at a supermarket to get ourselves some lunch supplies and some morning tea food and we’d seen these two ended fly things.. Yep they seemed to have two ends to them and four legs.. pretty large (blowfly sized) and they both walked and flew.. Crazy.. Nothing like I’ve seen before. We got to our road side stop and there were more of these crazy double ended bugs. They were everywhere! And they aren’t small, so having smoko wasn’t super pleasant for this anti-bug person! Whilst we were having smoko D was checking out these bugs pretty closely…. And they aren’t two ended…… The whole population are out looking for some fun … No joke, it must be that time of the year when these ugly big black lady bugs go hunting big black ugly boy bugs…..

Our journey continued down the coast til around 1pm when I signalled for us to get off the main road and go out to the bay in order to find a park for lunch (one was listed in our map book). Most of the time our map book has really come thru and today was no exception! Our turn off happened to be down to Jekyll Island.. and what a place!! It was once the playground of some very uber rich American’s and so part of the island is given over to these huge glorious mansions, the other half is still natural forest peppered with half built (and unlikely to be finished) condo/ hotel buildings.

We (not realising about the mansion stuff) started in the natural part of the island and this time didn’t have a bug issue but a squirrel issue! I’m guessing that the little critters are used to getting hand outs from humans so they were pretty daring little dudes.. Once our lunch had been consumed (by us not the squirrels!) we decided to go for a wander along the beachfront. Our first walk took us up to the scenic lookout, that is now overgrown with plants (like I said earlier, this side of the island is a bit of a work in progress that’s probably never gonna get finished!).. pretty amusing! Considering our view was lacking we decided to actually head down to the beach. First thing we found on the beach were all of these rock looking things on the tide mark. First thing I thought of was turtles! And I was pretty excited at seeing so many turtles on the beach… The closer we got to the rocks though, the clearer it became that they weren’t turtles but were something else entirely… They were rock looking turtle lids (you know the shell part of the turtle)… Hmm…. We met some other tourists on the beach (they must be about the only guests staying on the island, cause we haven’t seen anyone else!) who told us they were shells from hermit crabs! Holy smokes! They must be the biggest crabs alive!!! No joke, these shells are the size of a turtle shell/ hard hat helmet… I wouldn’t want to meet one of these crabbies when they are in a bad mood! (yep pretty lame I know….)

As we continued our drive around the island we finally found the historic district of Jekyll. It blew us away! Talk about lifestyles of the rich and the famous… Jekyll used to be one of the summer retreats to the likes of the Rockefeller’s, Vanderbilt’s, Roosevelt’s just to name a few. These uber wealthy purchased houses on the island and a huge clubhouse was built to entertain the fortunate few. Sports such as croquet, hunting, tennis, swimming and polo were all played at the club house. The club house is still very much in use. In fact, we considered staying the night here! You can still sip cocktails on the deck in your wicker chair and play a round of croquet out on the lawn.. You just don’t have to be a member of the American elite to enjoy the beauty and ambience of Jekyll anymore.

After much debate we forgoed the pleasure of hob-nobbing for the evening and instead continued the last hundred miles down to the Floridian border town of Kingsland. Here we didn’t shell out a cent for our accommodation as we had another free night owing to us! After settling in we headed to Applebees for another delicious dinner. All in all a surprising day.. we were expecting a boring drive and instead got to seem some real beauty out off the coast of Georgia!

Song of the Day– ABBA, Money, money, money