Recreational Activities
Canoeing, kayaking, and fishing are permitted in the spring run; swimming is permitted only in designated areas. There is a five-mile (8 km) hiking trail popular for birdwatching (the park is part of the Great Florida Birding Trail). One dead end of the trail leads to Monkey Island, named after monkeys who had escaped from the circus and settled there. Amenities include an enclosed swimming area, pavilions, picnic areas with tables and grills, volleyball courts, a playground, fishing pier, a boat ramp and boat dock. Guided eco-tours are offered by boat from the park to the adjacent Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge. A visitor center providing historical, cultural and natural history information is operated by the Friends of DeLeon Springs State Park. The Old Spanish Sugar Mill is now a restaurant, specializing in pancakes which guests prepare on individual griddles at their tables.
Read more about this topic: De Leon Springs State Park
Famous quotes containing the word activities:
“I am admonished in many ways that time is pushing me inexorably along. I am approaching the threshold of age; in 1977 I shall be 142. This is no time to be flitting about the earth. I must cease from the activities proper to youth and begin to take on the dignities and gravities and inertia proper to that season of honorable senility which is on its way.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)