Blackwater River State Park in Santa Rosa County, Florida

Photograph: FL Blackwater River SP01.jpg by Ebyabe · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Restored from the credited Wikimedia Commons file, normalized to the consistent attraction-card frame and converted to WebP by 1stFlorida.com. Portrait originals retain their complete composition over a softly blurred extension of the same photograph.

Santa Rosa County attraction

Blackwater River State Park

Santa Rosa County · Panhandle & Emerald Coast

Six hundred acres on one of the purest sand-bottom rivers in the country, with wide white sandbars to stop on.

ABOUT THIS PLACE

The park sits at 7720 Deaton Bridge Road inside Blackwater River State Forest, which protects the largest unbroken longleaf pine and wiregrass ecosystem left in the world. The water seeping out of that forest is about as clean as water gets, tinted the color of strong tea by tannins from leaves and roots but clear enough to see the bottom through. The bottom is white sand, and the contrast between dark water and white sand is what people remember. Sandbars build on the inside of every bend, wide enough to pull a canoe up and spend an afternoon on. Canoeing, kayaking and tubing are the main reasons to come, with outfitters upstream putting people in for runs of a few hours. There is a campground, picnic ground, restrooms and showers, and nature trails through the pine and hardwood where gopher tortoise, wild turkey, heron and white-tailed deer are ordinary sightings. It opens from eight in the morning to sundown all year

GETTING THERE

Get Directions ↗Official place website ↗

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