Going Dispersed Camping: the Planning Stage

We are planning out our first real, truly primitive camping experience! We wanted to try doing dispersed camping, which is a term basically meaning, "camping wherever I want out in the wild, and not having to pay a reservation fee."

Finding a Spot

Now, obviously, if you disperse camp on private property, you need to have permission; otherwise, owners/keepers of the land may chase you off-site with due diligence, and possibly a firearm. Finding a camping spot in a national forest or state park is, therefore, your safest bet.

WARNING! When you are dispersed camping, make sure you are not camping in game areas during hunting season!

We narrowed down our target to the Ocala National Forest: it's big, it's wild, and there are innumerable waterways and lakes from which to fill up our filtered bags. As a bonus, we might be able to do some kayak camping! Having decided on that forest, I did the research for a spot that fit our criteria, and ended up with this little area on the map.

Sebastian Canoe Launch

Tubing the Ichetucknee River

Although we didn't kayak this river, we did see several paddlers as they came from a launch further upstream. It was late October, so there were very few on the river, either kayaking or tubing. We saw some fish and many turtles, but no manatees or gators.

The weather was perfect: there was a light breeze, and the temperature was a mild 74°F. There were no mosquitoes. The current was relatively slow. I highly recommend doing this run during the mid-fall months.

South of the Sebastian Canoe Launch

You can't go far south of the Sebastian Canoe Launch. In fact, we probably only managed to go a mile before the waterway became completely choked with the skeleton of a fallen tree. While the water flow was relatively unimpeded, it would have required a chainsaw to hack through the branches. I briefly considered forcing our way as far as possible, in hopes of finding some way through, but my suggestion was vetoed. As always, my companion was wary of the possibility for snakes to fall from the branches should we try to fight through what little we could.

Given how brief a distance we had gone, we decided to head back upstream and explore the area north of the canoe launch. On our way, we stopped beneath the Sebastian Blvd overpass and tried the fishing there. My companion spent only some ten minutes on her endeavor, while I sat in the kayak and documented these facts, as well as our GPS position.

Mullet Camp on the Sebastian River, South Fork

We spent two nights at Mullet Camp, located in the Sebastian River Preserve State Park. The camp is located in red lettering on the state park map below:

                                    

Here's the satellite view:

Here's my initial take on the campground, recorded several weeks before the trip:

The campsite was only about 30 minutes away from our house, so we arrived at a reasonable hour to set up camp.

Unloading the vans

To make sure the kayaks didn't disappear on
us, we parked the vans back-to-back

The 0.5 mile trail is mostly sugar sand, which is...not particularly fun to hike through.

We saw lots of tracks in the sand: horses, coons, and many, many deer tracks.

We brought our wagon to haul supplies in, and it was definitely a help. We weren't particularly roughing it, on this trip, at least by primitive camping standards. You'll see in the pictures below that we brought some things that were rather luxurious.

The first load of supplies headed across the half-mile hike.

Lid's Ozark Trails tent set up on the left. Check out my
jury-rigged camping hammock!

Setting out all the stuff around the fire pit...SO MUCH STUFF

Mom and Liz putting up their tent. This
is the Alps Mountaineering Lynx.

Check out our super-cool bathroom! It's the Ozark Trails

Shower Tent, with a camp toilet derived from an old

bucket and this snap on toilet lid. We added a plastic

liner and dollar store cat litter. It worked a treat!

Basic rock fire ring

That collapsed figure is a very worn out Liz

The view through the mosquito netting, which is

just a cheap doublewide net from Walmart for

putting over cots

Cooking burgers for dinner. Gotta love cast iron skillets!

It's a chilly morning for Florida!

That wagon was indescribably helpful. I think it was bought at

Home Depot. So worth having to haul it up onto the top of the

van for the drive.

A bit closer view of the bathroom