General Coffee State Park – a heritage farm, trails, and more

As is typical for us, we made no plans for Easter Weekend. So Laura S. Walker was already booked up, and we had to move. Thankfully General Coffee State Park had plenty of room. And honestly, we have no idea why because it was a beautiful park.

General Coffee State Park Campground

There are two sections for RV camping at General Coffee State Park, and we were in loop 2. The campground was maybe half full if that. Most if not all of the sites were pull-through which made for easy in and out. They were spacious and shaded by trees.

The site also came with a paved patio and a picnic table.

When we went to check out the bathrooms, we were greeted by this sign.

We had no idea what that was about, so we asked someone. Apparently, it’s a thing to throw raw eggs as an Easter activity. Has anyone else heard of that?

Heritage Farm at General Coffee State Park

General Coffee has a small heritage farm that highlights the agricultural history of the area. When we were there, they had chickens, turkeys, goats, pigs, sheep, and donkeys. There were dispensers where you could buy food and feed the animals, but they were out when we were there.

The goats were the most social. They loved it when you would pick the fresh grass on the other side of the fence and feed it to them. And the baby goats kept escaping and wandering around eating that sweet new grass.

The chickens and turkeys were usually in their coop, but occasionally there would be one out.

The sheep were shy, but the donkey came over to say hi.

I promise you this pig isn’t dead. He’s just comfortable and lazy. If the pigs think you’re going to feed them something, they will fight with each other, so I don’t recommend that.

We visited the animals every day we were there. The baby goats were just too adorable!

Trails For Biking and Hiking

There are a bunch of trails for hiking and biking. [pdf] Be aware that parts of this park are hilly. Sometimes we had to work while biking. Or, we were just lazy after being in flat Florida for so long.

I think this is also the park where we were biking around on the trails and happened upon a couple having sex right by the path. We ended up turning around and giving them their privacy. Although since they were right on the trail, I’m guessing they wanted to be seen. Maybe we should have made them YouTube stars.

There’s also the 17-mile River, but don’t get excited about kayaking or canoeing it. The river looks like this:

Ranger / Naturalist Talks

Since it was Easter weekend, there wasn’t much to do in the area. But General Coffee State Park had plenty going on.

We went to several of the programs they had planned at the park. The first was a naturalist-led sunset hike. We learned about the critters in the area even if we didn’t see any. He also perfectly imitated an owl’s call.

That same naturalist had a reptile demonstration with live animals. They are kept in the museum over by the farm if you want to see them. He also led another hike on the other side of the river during the day.

There was a program at the farm that showed you how they made soap from goats milk.

If you’re ever at a park and they offer these talks and ranger or naturalist-led hikes we recommend it. They aren’t just for kids!

All in all, we loved this park. I’m not sure why it wasn’t busier, but I’m not complaining! If you are in the area and looking for last minute holiday weekend reservations, General Coffee State Park might be free when others are fully booked.