Grayton Beach State Park

Migrating dunes at Grayton Beach State Park

On a recent trip down Florida's Scenic 30A, we stopped to enjoy a hike along the Barrier Dunes Nature Trail and through the coastal forest around Western Lake at Grayton Beach State Park. Consistantly ranked as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, Grayton Beach offers an abundance of opportunities for relaxation and exploration. Our hour long nature hike definitely did not disappoint.

 

 

 

We started out the day with a picnic of spicy boiled shrimp on the sugar soft banks of beautiful Western Lake. While eating, we enjoyed watching the stand up paddle boarders cruise the lake and immediately decided to add paddle boarding to our ever-growing wish list of things to do next time we're in the area.

Entering the tree tunnel on the Barrier Dunes Trail

Western Lake is brackish (salt and fresh water) and is a rare coastal dune lake. True coastal dune lakes are only found in two places in the world, South Africa and Walton County Florida. Now we can say we've dipped our toes in one of them. Maybe one of these days we'll set out to find the other one. What a field trip that will be!

Exploring Western Lake

During our walk along the lake, we came upon a salt marsh ecosystem teeming with activity. Among all the plants and grasses, we discovered many different fish, tadpoles in various stages and hundreds of baby crabs burrowed in the sand. It was a really cool observation area, the kids could have stayed in that one spot all day!

Salt marsh crab nursery

My favorite things along the trail were the gnarled, sea spray covered trees. They've been naturally bent and twisted over the years to form a really cool tunnel over part of the trail. We had a blast climbing and exploring the "tree cave" and of course I had to prove to my kids that even moms can climb trees!

After we completed our hike, we spent some time on the beach, playing frisbee and watching the pelicans dive for their dinner. There was a storm moving in, so everyone else had packed up and left for the day. It was so nice to have the beach all to ourselves...so peaceful.

We really enjoyed our day at Grayton Beach State Park and are looking forward to going back to explore more (and go paddle boarding, of course) the next time we're in the area.