Camping at Hamburg State Park, Mitchell, Georgia
Continuing on our journey, we travelled a short distance to our next stop, Hamburg State Park (sister park to A. H. Stephens State Park). We travelled 31 miles from General Coffee State Park to A. H. Stephens State Park. Hamburg State Park is located in a rural area of Georgia not to far from the town of Mitchell. There is a gas station about 5.8 (corner of Main Street and Mitchell-Shoals-Jewell Road from this park, but for the most part, you’re in the middle of nowhere. I don’t mean this in a bad way – it’s a great way to chill, unwind and enjoy some quiet solitude. Many people come here to go fishing on the lake, still others just want to enjoy being away from it all (that’s us!).
Park Details
Hamburg State Park
Address: 6071 Hamburg State Park Rd, Mitchell, GA 30820
Park (478) 552-2393
Park 8am – 5pm
Park Office 8 a.m.–5 p.m.
Initially our cell phone service was sketchy (ie, Emergency calls only) but soon after our arrival and getting settled in the Verizon cell phone service was pretty good.
There were no television stations to be picked up by our camper’s antenna. In addition, I wasn’t able to get Travlfi to work for internet.
This is a fairly large park, 741 acres. The campground is along the edges of Hamburg Lake making it a beautiful spot to just watch nature. The lake is fed by Little Ogeechee River.
Campsite Details
30 amp electric
Picnic table, Fire ring
Gravel campsite
Our campsite was mostly shade, campsite #15. Lot of trees in this campground providing shade. The campground is surrounded by a lake with all campsites being on the lake. In the center of the campground is a rather large hill with a large cluster of pine trees, the play ground and the bath house/laundry.
Water/Electric
Back in sites
Checkin is 1pm
Checkout is 12pm
Quiet hours 10pm - 7am
NOTE: Thus far, it seems that Georgia state parks have a checkin of 1pm, checkout of 12pm.
The campground is surrounded by a lake with all campsites being on the lake. In the center of the campground is a rather large hill with a large cluster of pine trees, the playground and the bath house/laundry.
The bath house was nice and clean – it was located a few campsites down and up the hill! You can drive to the bath house if you prefer, but from our campsite we would have to drive most of the way around the loop to get to the bath house.
The have a laundry facility on the north side of the bath house. Washers 1.50 per load, Dryers 1.50 per load. This seems to be fairly standard pricing for Georgia state parks at the writing of this blog.
The dumper and dump station are located at the end of the campground loop.
The bath house, laundry area.
The camp host is normally camping up on this hill by the bath house - but there wasn't one there when we were camping. You can pick up fire wood here, but with no camp host, you need to handle this through the park office.
And laundry is on the north side of the bath house building. Washer 1.50, Dryer 1.50
I have not noticed these signs at other parks, "Severe Weather, Shelter Area", but I guess now with the hurricanes and bad storms coming through it's important to figure this stuff out. I'm sitting here trying to imagine all of the campers and their pets crammed into this building for the severe weather.....
Red trail hike
After studying the trail map provided when we checked in – I determined that for most of the trails we needed to drive over to the east entrance to the park. There is 1 trail (the yellow trail) that is not to far from the campground but we didn’t get a chance to do that trail during our stay.
Instead, we headed over to the other trails and decided to take the “Red Trail” since a small portion of it goes along the lake. Please be aware, there are alligators in the lake – signs posted for alligators.
At first, finding the beginning of the trails was a bit confusing and I’ll admit that we drove the short road that is part of the east entrance twice! Ok – the first time we ended up back at the main road, so we had to go around again. We figured it out. There are two shelters for those having a picnic/party get together. The first one that you come to has several parking places in front. We parked there.
The grist mill is just a short walk from this shelter - you can see it from here.
However, it appears that we probably should have driven to the second shelter that has a couple of parking spaces as the trails actually begin much closer to the second shelter. No matter, once we found the trails they are well marked and easy to follow.
The red trail is a loop (VERIFY). Xxx in length …..continue with details from map?
Ah, I got a little break from hanging onto dog leashes as Jim took the entire crew for part of this walk.
After walking on the trail, the dogs were thirsty so Abby checked out the water facet and gave it a try at getting some water. Rue and Ollie passed on it so I gave them water in a bowl.
After Dark - Sunrise
I will say that “after dark” I am absolutely positive the skies were beautiful – just that I was a bit to tired to stay up and check it out. Jim did – and he said the skies were wonderful dark and good for star gazing.
I actually got up before dark as I wanted to watch the sunrise over the lake – that was beautiful and the sun was in a good location from our campsite so just a short walk (taking 20 steps here) to see an awesome sunrise with a little chill in the air and steam coming off the lake.
The woodpecker
As we set up our campsite I noticed in the tree close by there was a woodpecker. Naturally, after we got our camp set up, I decided to try and capture a few photographs of this little woodpecker. I haven’t seen one like it before – still not 100% sure what kind of woodpecker this is – but maybe some of you birders can help me here – is this a yellow bellied sapsucker? (a type of woodpecker that is in Georgia?). I don’t believe I have seen any of these in central Florida.
We also saw the vultures....
And this crazy squirrel hanging onto the tree over our campsite.
Grist mill
I will admit that I wanted to see the grist mill – and while I was able to see the outside and photograph the outside the grist mill was closed when we were camping here. The grist mill was built back in 1921 (so it’s over 100 years old now) and provides a unique feature for this park.
Apparently, this park had been without a park ranger for a little while and they recently got a park ranger but they were still getting settled in so the grist mill tours were currently cancelled until the new park ranger was settled in and ready to give tours.
Side note: The campground was without a camp host during the time period were camped due to a family emergency so definitely a lack of help at this time.
This photograph was taken from the Red Trail when we were hiking.
A few other photographs from where you can walk right up to the grist mill.
Abby realizing the camera is aimed at her!
Rocket Food & Fuel
After talking with the young lady in the park office, we decided to take a short drive over to Mitchell, Georgia as she mentioned that the Rocket Food & Fuel (gas station on the corner) did have a little deli and some other food – it was a welcome break from eating at the campground(s). The food is similar to what I would expect from a fast-food place, but definitely edible and I enjoyed my BBQ pork sandwich.
The town of Mitchell is very small – we drove through it and found a lumber mill with about 100 or more cars parked at it – I suspect that this is the primary employer of the people living in this area.
MAP
Here's a copy of the map (paper) we received at the park office for this park. One thing to note is that the campground is at a separate entrance than the 'day use' areas of this park. They have boats to rent by the office if you want to go out on the lake. Maybe sometime I will actually try this - but it's not something that is dog friendly, so we typically don't do anything that isn't. Having some form of transportation other than your feet is helpful in some of these larger parks because if you don't have that - then you're going to be doing a lot of walking just to get to the part of the park you want to go to.
The various trails are listed at the bottom of this paper - but I realize this is probably very hard to read.
Red Trail 1.5 miles
Blue Trail .25 miles
White Trail 2 miles
Black Trail (?) .5 miles
Google Maps showing the route that we took from A. H. Stephens State Park to Hamburg State Park.
A fairly straight path south, with just a few small towns along the way. Remember, you're in rural Georgia - don't let the gas tank get to low and don't plan on finding any fast food (or other food) along many of these paths.
To View all the photographs from this park, click Here