RV and Outdoor Adventures of Julie & Tom: Faver Dykes Campground

Friday, January 13, 2012

Faver Dykes Campground

Date: 1/13/2012 – 1/15/2012
Location: St. Augustine, Fl
GPS Coordinates: 29.668748, -81.251261
Julie’s sister Karen wanted to do a camping trip before she moved out of state and wanted to be somewhat close to the east coast beaches of Florida. Searching the Florida Parks website, Julie found Faver-Dykes which is a small (26 campsite) campground which is about 2.5 miles from the Atlantic beaches. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate for walking on the beach as it was very cold for Florida. I think the temperature got down in the 20’s the first night. We didn’t mind as we have heat in the camper, but Karen was a little chilly in her tent. But she didn’t complain and made it through with no problems. It did warm up enough the next day that Julie and I could do some kayaking. We put in at the boat dock within the park and paddled up river on the Pelicer Creek. This is a river that winds it’s way through the salt marshes and makes for a very nice paddle. Pelicer Creek is affected by the tides somewhat.This is not a problem for kayaks or canoes, but could make boating with anything larger a challenge.
There’s a series of hiking trails and forest roads that lead off into the “wilderness” from the campground. We did several of these hikes, nothing very difficult, but enjoyable. Also, being winter and clear skies, we enjoyed star gazing one evening. There’s not much light pollution in this area, so the sky was very bright and the stars easy to see. The only improvement would have been for the temperature to not be so darn cold. We didn’t gaze at the stars for very long.
There’s also a lot of geocaches within this park. The first day we put a few coordinates in our GPS and were able to locate them. We hadn’t done any geocaching before, so this was something different to do.
Here’s our review of this campground:
Campground: Faver Dykes
Campground Website: http://www.floridastateparks.org/faverdykes/default.cfm
Site Number: 22
Date visited: 1/13/2012 - 1/15/2012
Rating (1 = low, 5 = high)
Campsite size: 4
Campsite space between sites: 3 (varies by site)
Campsite privacy between sites: 3 (varies by site)
Campsite level: 4 (a few sites are not very level, but most are ok
Campsite parking: dirt
Campfire permitted: yes in fire ring
Campsite picnic table: Wood
Campground Facilities: 3.5
Campground access to hiking: 4
Campground access to water (kayaking, fishing, swimming, etc): 5
Campground access to biking: 2 (dirt roads and many sandy spots)
Overall Campground rating: 3.5

Hiking Trail through the pine forest