Dauset Trail, A FREE Nature Preserve

What: Dauset Trails
Where: 360 Mt.Vernon Rd., Jackson, GA 30233 (About 40 min. south of Atlanta)
When: Mon. -Sat. 9 – 5 pm, Sun. 12 – 5 pm
Cost: FREE (donations accepted)

After three people raved about Dauset Trails, we decided to try it. Thanks to Eric Hansen, Gayle Silvey and Tina Wallace for the tip, Dauset Trails was awesome!

Dauset Trails, about 40 minutes south of Atlanta, is a private, non-profit center and the dream of Hampton Daughtry and his childhood friend David Settle. The preserve includes 1200 acres of scenic trails, creeks. lakes, flora, and wildlife. In addition, there is a visitors center, Animal Trail, Farm Trail, manicured gardens, and picnic area. They have designated hiking, biking trails and horse riding trails, but you have to bring your own bike or horse. For some reason, bring your own horse cracks me up.

Bring several quarters too. Along the Animal Trail there are feeding stations and of course the animals interact more when you’re feeding them. The boys were immediately taken in by the large brem in the pond. The turtles were a draw too, especially the large snapping turtle. We know it was a snapping turtle, because we saw one recently on a trip to the Tidelands Nature Center on Jekyll Island. Across the pond is the Animal Trail. Here you can see rehabilitated cougars, raccoons, various birds of prey, a black bear, river otters, a beaver and more. On the Farm Trail we saw goats, pigs, cows, chickens and horses. In addition to the farm buildings, there is a newly installed blacksmith area and syrup making facilities. There are lots of fun activities planned at Dauset Trails, including a blacksmithing demonstration, pumpkin carving and on Nov. 21, syrupmaking and pig pull. Sign me up.

The Wonder Room is in the basement of the visitors center and showcases, among other things, reptiles common in the area, as well as a classroom for groups. We saw gopher tortoise here, just like the ones we saw in the wild at Reed Bingham State Park (my boys will really know their turtles after this summer).

We didn’t have time to meander along the trails too much, but at the visitors center you can pick up a “pleasure hunt” form that can be used on the Woodland Garden Trail. It lists 29 things to “find” on the trail. It looks like these are inanimate objects that have been placed in the garden, so it’s an easy search and find rather than a nature identification activity. If nature identification is more your bag, head out to the Tree Trail with another sheet available at the Visitor’s Center that asks you to match the numbered trees with the name of the tree. There are 31 different kinds of trees to identify.

Of course there’s always the old standby, hunt for frogs. My kids are always excited when they catch a frog and I think left to their own devices, would spend hours catching and releasing the same frog. Thankfully for the frog, we had other obligations.