Wednesday Walking - A Stroll on the Riverwalk Downtown Jacksonville

As one of the few rivers in the United States that flow north the St. Johns River begins in the marshes south of Melbourne. It winds its way slowly 310 miles north where it dumps into the Atlantic Ocean at Mayport. It's a lazy, slow moving river and is the focal point of downtown Jacksonville. The city has taken advantage of this natural wonder by building a beautiful walk along both the north and south banks of the river.

We started on the north side of the river and walked over the Main Street bridge. 

We love to go downtown and walk over the Main Street and Acosta bridges. The Main Street bridge is a pretty easy walk. Just a little incline. Now the Acosta will kinda kick your butt. It's pretty steep. I didn't feel up to a strenuous walk today so I was a little happy that the Acosta bridge was closed. Some type of an endurance bicycle race going on. The goal was to see how many times you could  cross the bridge in 4 hours. 

I could probably do it once...

We caught sight of a few of the bicyclist as we were wondering around.

Any how...Below is a view from the bridge looking back towards the Landing.

And now from the bridge looking south towards Friendship Fountain.

The remodeled Southbank Riverwalk is beautiful They did a great job! Still a few places under construction but it didn't hinder our progress. Such a great improvement over what it used to look like. 

The Southbank Riverwalk used to end here at this statue but now it extends all the way to the Duval County School Board building. Yea, they got a nice view paid for by the taxpayers...

 Jacksonville Naval Memorial
Commemorates the relationship between the U.S. Navy and the people of Jacksonville. 

One of several party boats docked along the river.

Friendship Fountain with the Main Street Bridge in the background

Geocaching

We spent a good bit of time around the fountain looking for a multi-cache Geocache. I've written before about Geocaching. In a nutshell people hide things that you search for by using GPS coordinates. When you locate the hidden item, called a cache, there's usually a log book to sign and then you mark it as found on the website. 

"Geocaching - When you use multi billion dollar military satellites to find Tupperware hidden in the woods."

If you'd like more info on this fun outdoor activity check out the website Geocaching.com. Geocaching is a family friendly activity.

It was a beautiful day to be walking and we covered over 3 miles. 

Perfect weather, lovely view and friendly people can't hardly beat that!