A week’s worth of reasons not to get back in the car
Don’t want to venture out after you arrive? We get it — it’s lovely here. Sluice a bucket of Carolina dirt, swim, walk a llama, lose at gaga ball to a nine-year-old, and be back at your fire by dark.
Everything here is a short walk from your site
Forty acres, twenty of them left as woods. The common area sits in the middle, so parents can sit back and watch the kids have a ball without following them around.
SeasonalThe swimming pool
Shallow at both ends, which parents of small swimmers notice immediately. Open for the season — come and take a dip whenever the sun gets too warm.
Daily 9–5Gem & fossil mining
Amethyst, emerald, quartz, shark’s teeth. Open every day to campers and the public alike.
How it works
Twenty acres of trail
Well-mown grass paths through undeveloped woods — for running, dog walking, biking, or taking a llama for a stroll. When we say in the pines, we mean it.
The part they’ll talk about on the way home
Gaga ball
A kinder, gentler version of dodgeball. Last one standing wins, and it will not be you.
Book aheadLlama trekking
A guided stroll on the trails with a llama, with a stop at a hidden pond halfway. Run by SundMist Pastures — reservations go through them, in advance.
The jump pad, the playground and a treasure hunt
An inflatable jumping pad low enough for several kids at once, a hand-built wooden play set, and Blackbeard’s Lost Treasure Hunt — follow the clues, bring the piece you find to the front office, collect a prize.
Live music on the fourth Saturday
The Megan Hanley Band plays 6–8 PM on the fourth Saturday of the month through the summer — crowd favourites from the 1970s to now. Beyond that there’s a luau, a fall festival, a pig pickin’, and the Christmas tree lighting.
Gem and fossil mining, open to everyone
Water runs through a series of troughs and you work a bucket of Carolina dirt down to what’s in it. Identification charts come with the bucket, so you leave knowing what you found rather than with a bag of interesting rocks.
It runs every day from 9 AM to 5 PM, and it is open to the public as well as campers — which makes it a good reason for the family who didn’t come camping to drive out and meet you.
How the mining works