Fort Clinch State Park (FL)

September 17, 2008 by steve.

Catching up on the blogging here at the CurbCrusher household. We took off for Labor Day and went as far north on Florida’s east coast as you get without being in Georgia. Located on the northern tip of Amelia Island (north of Jacksonville) sits the Fort Clinch State Park. Once again, this was a trip that was part of the Florida Pop Up Campers group, so we knew some of the folks in the campground.

There are two camping areas at Ft. Clinch, the beach campground located on the east side of the park and the river campground located on the west. The river campground is a very shady and has a mixture of large and small sites, with some of them looking like they might be a challenge to get into. There is also a new bathhouse at the river campground, a playground and it is not a far walk from the fort. The beach campground sits just behind the dunes from the beach and the Atlantic Ocean, and has a few palm trees, but no shade to speak of. The sites are all fairly large, and there is plenty of room to back into and position yourself in the sites. The bathhouse at the beach campground is old, it is probably the original bathhouse for this park, the showers are located under a roof, but they are outside the bathroom proper. It is about two miles from the beach campground over to the fort. Both campgrounds offer water and electric at each site, and a dump station.

For things to do, there is of course the beach. We spent quite a bit of time wandering up and down the beach collecting shells. Each high tide was depositing a number of large conch and other whole shells on the beach. The area down near the fishing pier was especially rich in shells, we returned with a full five gallon bucket of shells. Just south of the pier is the swimming area, about a ten minute walk from the beach campground. This area is fairly unpopulated, as the public swimming area for the town is just south of the park, so not a lot of people come into the park to swim. The town of Fernandina Beach is close by, and has a downtown for walking and eating.

We had a great Labor Day weekend camping with FPUC at Ft. Clinch, and you can see our pictures here.

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