In normal times we travel back to England to see family and friends over Christmas and new year – not possible this year but we still wanted to mark the occasion and make the most of the break. We decided on a couple of nights on Amelia Island, one of the barrier islands in the north east close to Jacksonville. Northern Florida is much cooler than Miami so it felt right at this time of year to be packing jeans and hoodies, mostly for me, my boys and husband still kept wearing the shorts.
We had the time so decided to break up the journey with an overnight stop around St. Augustine. After booking I noticed that St. Augustine is known for its Night of Lights and thought we’d go take a look that evening. However there was a mutiny. The hotel we’d booked was out of town because we’d originally planned this to be just a convenient bed for the night. The rest of the family refused to drive back into town and favoured takeaway pizza and a film in the room. As a compromise, and mostly to humor me, my husband had spotted an alternative 5 minutes away. The Light of Christmas – a free drive through experience, with accompanying music through the radio – we did the loop twice and threatened the children with a third time!
Next morning our first stop was at the Kingsley Plantation in the Timucuan Preserve on Fort George Island; the drive through the preserve was quite jungly and on a rough and bumpy road which was fun but made us question if we’d taken the right turn! We did make it to the grounds on the banks of the Fort George river. For us it was a self guided tour, using QR codes to hear the audio on our phone and an outside table had a kids activity sheet available. The information was interesting and the children were happy to dip in and out, in between running around the grounds, after the previous day’s long car drive. It was grey and we were lucky to dodge the showers but had the place pretty much to ourselves.
We moved on to Amelia Island, checked in and went for a walk along the very empty beach before dinner.
The sun was out the following morning and we drove 10 minutes north to the top of Florida on the St. Mary’s River and Fort Clinch State Park. We parked at the Fort then set out on the 6 mile trail, this was great for walkers but would also be fun on bikes. In the cooler temperatures this was an easy hike through the forest. Having completed the loop we took our picnic (and a fishing rod for my husband) down to the beach. We sat on the rocks looking over to Georgia for a while, but the breeze was chilly! Then on to the Fort which was $2.50 per person for entry and an information leaflet. Lots of towers and ramparts to climb, canons pointing out to sea and open windows to look into the kitchen and bunk rooms. Just enough history for one afternoon.
Back at the hotel my daughter went shark teeth hunting on the beach, without success, then soon enough it was time to make dinner plans. The hotel, of course, has restaurants but we’ve been avoiding them during Covid so opted for a takeaway to be delivered. We found the pool bar, which was closed and therefore that area was totally deserted but the firepits were burning so it was a great cosy spot for our evening.
Heading back south the following morning we stopped off at ‘NaNa‘, Florida’s tallest sand dune at historic American Beach. Fairly underwhelming, so we continued on our way after a refreshing couple of days ready for Christmas to begin.
Sounds like a perfect Covid getaway!
The highlight for me were the Christmas lights just outside St Augustine…. 😬🎄