BAREFOOT BEACHCOMBING

Camping - Belle Isle State Park - Lancaster, Virginia - July 2020

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For my birthday week, I decided to head to Belle Isle State Park in Lancaster, Virginia. The park is about 2.5 hours away from Hampton Roads. It is on the southern shore of the Northern Neck of Virginia on the Rappahanock River. This is a relatively new state park having opened just over 20 years ago with minimal amenities. The campground fully opened in 2017. I stayed at site 10 which is in the middle of the campground. All the sites have water and electric hookups and the park has a dump station located in the rear of the campground. The campsites are large and separated from each other by dense woody vegetation. The park is relatively small (for a state park) at 828 acres and has a total of 28 campsites in addition to a primitive group camping area located on the water accessible by canoe or kayak.

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www.dcr.virginia.gov/state-parks/belle-isle

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​The park has a boat ramp on the Deep Creek side of the park and also a kayak/canoe launch on the other side of the park on Mulberry Creek.

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The park also has a historic mansion on the property named Bel Air. John Garland and Peggy Pollard built their home at the mouth of Deep Creek in Lancaster County, Virginia in 1942. Designed by Colonial  Williamsburg architectural historian, Thomas Tileston Waterman, Bel Air was inspired by the Pollard ancestral home in King and Queen County, c. 1734.

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The parks are following good physical distancing practices. The check-in process at the park was completely contactless . They had all the paperwork and hang-tags setup in an envelope in the kiosk outside the camp store.

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The park was peaceful and quiet. I had very limited cell phone service at the campsite. There was a bit of a better signal near the park office (which as closed). I'm thinking that they might have had a booster in there. I brought my bicycle and and was able to explore a lot of the trails that way. The park has 10 miles of trails including some available for equestrian use.

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I hiked at a couple of natural area preserves. The Virginia Natural Area Preserves System was established in the late 1980s to protect some of the most significant natural areas in the Commonwealth. The Natural Area Preserve System includes examples of some of the rarest natural communities and rare species habitats in Virginia. This system now includes 65 dedicated natural areas totaling 58,207 acres.

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Hickory Hollow Natural Area is a 254 acre moist hardwood forest, pine forest, and seepage swamp along the Western Branch of the Corrotoman River. The seepage swamp, Cabin Swamp, is an exceptional quality wetland community that supports a very high diversity, perhaps 500 plant species including several mountain species not common to this area and the rare Kentucky Lady’s slipper orchid, and as many as 115 bird species.

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Bush Mill Stream Natural Area - Nestled along the sinuous curves of a Chesapeake Bay headwaters creek, Bush Mill Stream Natural Area Preserve provides a great sampling of some unspoiled coastal plain habitats. Freshwater flowing from a nearby bottomland meets salty tidal waters flowing up from the Chesapeake Bay via the Great Wicomico River. A variety of wetlands borders Bush Mill Stream and the preserve’s steep hillsides and uplands are forested with a mixture of hardwoods and pines. This property was acquired with Virginia citizens’ contributions to the Open Space Recreation and Conservation Fund, and with assistance from the Northern Neck of Virginia Audubon Society and from The Nature Conservancy.

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I paddled my new inflatable kayak from the park on Mulberry Creek. It was a spectacular morning. Calm and still. Mulberry Creek is a brackish marsh lined with marshgrass. The osprey were out in full voice guarding their nests. Lots of other birds including several very large Great Blue Herons. in parts of the creek, the water was remarkably clear. At one point, I came across what appeared to be a full engine block. I'm wondering if Jamie can fix it. ;)

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I ventured out to the eastern end of the Northern Neck and visited Reedville and Heathville. Reedville has a fisherman's museum with displays of boats typically used in the area by commercial fishermen. Heathville has a historic town square with several old buildings including an old jail. I also stopped on the Northern Neck Farm Museum to take some pictures with the Legos. :) The inside of the museums were still closed due to COVID-19, but I visited the outdoor displays.

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​​I also visited a site called Menokin about 25 miles from the park. Menokin is on the National Register of Historic Places. It was the 1769 home of Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Francis Lightfoot Lee and Rebecca Tayloe Lee. This former manor house remains one of Virginia’s best examples of original colonial architecture. Built near the Rappahannock River, the ruin is nestled among 500 nearly-untouched acres of historical landscape, 325 of which are part of the Rappahannock River Valley National Wildlife Refuge. The visitor center was closed due to the pandemic, but the grounds were open. The house is current under a major restoration. www.menokin.org