Kayaking - Rock Springs Run

 8.7 miles, 2.7 avg speed, 6.3 max speed, 4:00 elapsed time

I can’t post told us that the kayaking around here it’s very crowded and we had also read this online. So we got up early and headed up to Kelly park where we got a pass to go into Joy camp. If you launch from Kelly Park it’s $10 a person and dogs were not allowed. But if you go into Joy camp it cost us three dollars for the two of us and then she was allowed. I’m not sure why more people don’t go into Joy camp. It could be the long walk down to the river, about the distance of three football fields. Once you get to the water there’s a heavy growth of water lilies where you kayak through and then out into the river. We actually paddled through heavy greenery. The river reminded us of a cross between Juniper Springs and Silver River. It was a Windi twisty river, but not unmanageable. Unlike Silver River beautiful reflections. We passed a few alligators, turtles and birds. At one point I heard heavy breathing and it turned out to be to snapping turtles fighting with each other near the bank of the river. We stopped at the first campsite and had a lunch there. It was about this time that we started seeing other paddlers on the river. We passed two other campsites but did not stop at these. as we got within 2 miles of the takeout, we started passing more people in kayaks. They didn’t look like long distance kayakers, and we suspected that they hung around here Wekiva island. The last mile is a paddle upstream towards Wekiva springs. We got out and carried our boats up the hill. At the top of the hill is the Weekawah Springs park, and there happened to be a big Cub Scout gathering. Scotty rode his bike back to the truck while Benji and I hung out with the Rugrats. Scotty texted as he waited in line just to get back into the park. This is obviously a very very popular place to be on the weekend. We loaded up the boats and headed back to the camper where I probably gave BenjiBear a bath as he was pretty sandy.