Ocmulgee River Adventure Weekend in Macon
Republished from Georgia River Network Blog
Written by Grace Wilson
Our Paddle Georgia trip in May 2024 explored the Ocmulgee River and fall line region during a historic spring in Macon!
What's that hum?
There was something in the air as soon as we arrived at the Amerson Park Jay Hall Memorial Boat Launch in Macon. The morning’s shower was clearing, but Macon was still thick with humidity and a subtle, but sustaining vibration in the air. Our paddlers arrived in Macon for the Ocmulgee River Adventure the same week a historic brood of cicadas emerged at the fall line.
These cicadas didn’t scream when the sun intensified on their wings, and they didn’t create a cacophony of like chirping crickets. Instead, they maintained a steady harmonious hum like a fleet of idling cars or hovering UFOs. When you only get to host a reunion once every 13 years, you don’t want your large party to get a bad reputation as a nuisance.
This brood, Brood XIX, or the Great Southern Brood, was a chorus of four species of cicada that provided the soundtrack for the rest of our trip. For only living a few weeks, these groggy cicadas flew aimlessly about the Ocmulgee river bank and recklessly close to the surface of the water. They often drifted straight into paddlers and into the river. We created a game of rescuing these lethargic aliens, scooping them up with our paddles and allowing them to dry their wings on our kayaks.
Later on our voyage, we floated around a river bend and noticed the chorus of cicadas grew louder. But it wasn’t cicadas. A new track layer was added to our nature soundtrack: the roar of trucks and cars that whoosh down the interstate could be heard as the Ocmulgee turned to run parallel to I-75. We soon paddled towards a massive network of interstate bridges, the junction of I-75 and I-16. We sailed low under a total of six towering bridges, found a spot to slip through a narrow break in hidden construction equipment, and paddled in a single file line under a ramp and platform that tucked even more equipment out of sight under the bridges. We ended in urban Macon with our take out for the day’s paddle at Spring Street Landing.
On Land: Exploring Ocmulgee Mounds
Boats loaded, we headed over to the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park. This ancient village (inhabited from c. 1350 to the late 1600s)is now slated to become Georgia’s first national park, and the first national park in the nation to be co-managed by a removed native tribe–the Muscogee Nation. The Ocmulgee mounds made national news just days before our trip with the introduction of a bipartisan measure to more than double the footprint of the roughly 2,800-acre Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park.
Day Two
We strolled the many walking paths on the park grounds to two significant sites: the Earthlodge and Great Temple Mound. We ducked inside a tunnel to the center of the Earthlodge and imagined the 46 delegates seated around the village Chief’s bird-shaped stand. A network of wooden staircases brought us 50 feet to the top of the Great Temple Mound that offered panoramic views of downtown Macon below. Later that night we experienced the best of Macon and swapped stories at Fall Line Brewing.The second day of the trip started at Popes Ferry Landing for a 12 mile paddle down the Ocmulgee River. This section of river was just north of the fall line, which offered a completely different river experience. While the river section on the first day of our trip offered a sandy bottomed river and larger sandbars, this section of the river offered a rocky bottom with shoals. Paddlers tested their agility around swift sections and even floated down shoals in their life vests.
Now that we’ve paddled two sections of the Ocmulgee River, we’re eager to go back and explore even more. The Ocmulgee Water Trail encompasses the entire river at over 240 miles, making it the longest continuous water trail in Georgia. Explore numerous river runs from the output of Lake Jackson to its confluence with the Oconee River at the start of the Altamaha River. Find river access points, research stream gauges and learn about points of interest on the Ocmulgee Water Trail in one spot on our Georgia River Guide mobile app. Follow our calendar, we hope to host more paddle adventures on this iconic Georgia river!
