A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.
I was on a quest to find traces of the old Swamp Rabbit Railroad. This isn’t the one that runs through Northern Greenville with which most are familiar, but was a train that ran across Barnwell, Aiken, and Lexington Counties. So far I already traveled the original route from Blackville to Sievern. Now I was going to deeper into the swamps of the Edisto, and losing my way in the process.
Read More “Chasing the Swamp Rabbit – Part 4, Lost in Lexington” »
I was on a quest to find traces of the “other” Swamp Rabbit Railroad, a passenger service on the Blackville, Alston & Newberry (BA&N) line that ran from Blackville in Barnwell County to Seivern in Lexington County. So far the task had been easy. There were clear tracks and right-of-ways between and through the towns of Blackville, Springfield, Salley, Perry, and Wagener. The last four towns came into existence because of the BA&N, and these towns celebrated their railroad heritage. The Swamp Rabbit was about to get more elusive, though, as its route traversed the environment for which it was named – the swamps of the Edisto River.
Read More “Chasing the Swamp Rabbit – Part 3, Sievern and Edisto Academy” »
I had been on an excursion to track down the Swamp Rabbit Railroad – not the well-known one in Greenville County, but a lesser-known railroad that ran from Blackville in Barnwell County to the ghost town of Sievern in Lexington County. I was following a map developed by Mitch Bailey of Lexington, with data points form the map loaded into my GPS. So far I’d traced the railroad from Blackville to Springfield, but I still had a ways to go.
Read More “Chasing the Swamp Rabbit – Part 2, From Salley to Wagener” »
When folks in this area hear the phrase “Swamp Rabbit Railroad”, they probably think of the Swamp Rabbit Trail, which has garnered so many accolades. Use of the name has been growing as the moniker “Swamp Rabbit” has been taken by many new businesses, usually those located along the trail on the old railway. The trail has gotten so popular that even the local pro hockey team changed their name from Road Warriors to the Greenville Swamp Rabbits.
As most Greenvillians know, the trail was named for the former Greenville and Northern Railroad, nicknamed the Swamp Rabbit because its route took it through the wetlands of the upper Reedy River. However, the lowly sylvilagus aquaticus lent its name to not one, but two railroads in South Carolina. The former Blackville, Alston, and Newberry line was also known as the Swamp Rabbit, and ran through the wetlands of the North Edisto River from Blackville in Barnwell County to the ghost town of Seivern in Lexington County. The first Sunday in May I set out to see what I could find of this other Swamp Rabbit Railroad.
I’ve notice something new this year. Several communities have been holding spring fairs. Anderson held their fair a couple of weeks ago, and one is currently underway in Simpsonville. It seems a strange time of year to hold a fair, so I decided to check out the Simpsonville Fair at Heritage Park.
I get really, REALLY mad when people steal my work. I just now came across another example on Facebook. Apparently someone visited my post about the cursed Robintation Tree, downloaded the images, then posted them to a Ghost Towns discussion group as her own. However, not only did she steal my photographs, but she copied … Read More “RandomConnections on Lockdown” »
This has been an incredibly busy weekend. I paddled two different rivers – the New River and the May River near Bluffton, and the weekend wasn’t yet done. I was also serving as a docent for the Laurens Cemetery Tours this year.
It’s another Lowcountry Unfiltered Second Saturday, which means paddling with my friends. Last month we traveled up to the Fall Line to paddle Turkey and Stevens Creeks. This month we would be hanging close to home, at least for the majority of our paddlers. We would be paddling the May River, launching from Bluffton. It wasn’t close to home for me, though. I made the four-hour drive down yesterday in time to do some pre-LCU paddling with Tim Brown on the New River. Today’s exploration with the larger group would be quite different.
Read More “Paddling the May River with Lowcountry Unfiltered” »
This was a second Saturday weekend, and we had a paddling trip planned with Lowcountry unfiltered. For this trip the guys decided to stay close to home – their home near Bluffton, SC. I planned to head down a day early and do some photography, but a friend from Savannah had another suggestion. We would sneak in another paddling trip Friday afternoon. For this trip we would be heading to the New River, between Hardeeville and Bluffton.
Three of the things I’ve never done: I’d never kayaked on the Catawba River, even though the Catawba River Keeper website links to some of my resources about the river. I had never been to Lansford Canal State Park. I had never seen spider lilies in bloom. All of that was about to change.