A Trip to Cumberland Island

On Fourth of July weekend Matt and I headed south toward Georgia's coastline to check out the town of St. Mary's and take a trip out to Cumberland Island. Even though it's very close to Florida, Cumberland Island is actually part of Georgia (though some people on the ferry with us had no idea about this despite the information being a Google search away.) The island is only accessible by ferry or private boat so we boarded the morning ferry, planning on wandering around most of the day.

There are only a couple people living on the island now so it's mostly uninhabited and is preserved national park land. The Carnegie family used to own most of it and there are various estates scattered around the island. The ruins of the Carnegie mansion, Dungeness - which burned down after being abandoned for many years - are close to the shoreline. Seeing parts of the old structure with the wild horses hanging around was one of my favorite parts of the trip. Though a lot of the wild horses looked like they could use a good meal.

After looking at the ruins and wild horses, we hiked over to the beach side of the island through white sand dunes in the noontime sun. I was starting to get tired by this point but we ventured on! At least I wasn't carrying the backpack. We had nowhere to keep our stuff since we'd checked out of our hotel already, so Matt was carrying our laptops on his back - along with snacks and water - the entire time! Once we made it to the sea we enjoyed the slight breeze and moved up the shoreline to the next camp area, taking pictures and checking out the sea birds and other creatures along the way. 

After the beach we took a walk through some wooded areas near a campsite and ended up back where we were dropped off. A thunder storm started rolling in so we were glad we were slated for the next ferry back! We were so sweaty, dirty, sandy and gross by the time we got back to St. Mary's and our car, we had to stop at Walmart and get wet wipes for a wipe down before heading back to Atlanta. Classy.

I enjoy going on trips that give me opportunities to take pictures of things that aren't myself and my immediate surroundings. I don't often get to take pictures of sea birds, mansion ruins, or wild horses! We kind of just dropped everything and decided to take this trip last minute because Matt could do a site visit for work while we were there. We need to go on more semi-spontaneous weekend trips!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed perusing pictures that weren't an outfit. But if you were interested in the super casual outfit I wore here, the blue lace top is from Delia's, shorts are Forever 21, the purse is from Pepa Loves, and my sandals are from Shoe Carnival.

Have a wonderful rest of your weekend!