Padling Merchant's Millpond State Park, North Carolina
Merchant's Millpond is one of the most beautiful and enchanting paddle trips you can find. The coffee colored water and the moss covered cypress and tupelos trees provide a beauty that has to be experienced to believe.
Getting to Merchant's Millpond
The only bad part about paddling Merchant's Millpond, is getting there. It's in the middle of nowhere with no town nearby. It's four plus hours from Durham, for example. But the trip is well worth it. Our trip was part of a multi day excursion to the eastern part of NC which included paddling on Lake Mattamuskeet.. We based in Edenton, NC which is about a close to the park as you can get.
Directions to the park can be found at the official State Park Site.
Camping at Merchant's Millpond
If you're up to it, you can camp at the park. There are several primitive kayak and backpack campsites at the park. If you don't want to completely rough it, there are 25 car campsites available. The car sites provide a picnic table and grill with a washroom, drinking water, and showers nearby. The primitive sites have pit toilets and no drinking water. So be sure to take water with you.
Our paddling trip
We paddled there in Mach 2003 on a beautiful sunny day. There were a few other paddlers on the pond. Once we left the launch area we were pretty much alone. We foud several turtles taking advatage of the sunny day to sunbathe. They generally plopped into the water when we got close.
If you paddle the mllpond, you should pick up a map at the ranger station. It shows the numerous bouy trails. Each tral is marked with a different color bouy. The trails are useful because It can be easy to get confused on the pond.The buoy trails get you unconfused.
We talked to the ranger who told us that there was a small alligator in the park. I hoped we would see it, but we didn't. Later in the year there are supposed to be snakes on the pond. A good reason to paddle in the early spring or late fall.
We returned to the millpond for a second paddle on our way home. This time we saw a fair number of birds including a beautful hawk. This is definately a place we plan to return to.
If you want to stretch you legs after a bit of paddling, you can hike some of the trails in the park. The down side of hiking is ticks. In the warm months, the place is said to be full of them, so take plenty of OFF or other high powered insect repellant.
If you're still not convienced that you need to vist Merchant's Millpond, check out this trip report: