Bond Swamp is not a name that you would see on a hiking page but I believe there was a whole page worth of adventure that happened around this hike so I felt like sharing it.
I live about 30 minutes west of Atlanta. I had been looking to make a day trip down to Macon for sometime. While it ends up being about a 3 to 4 hour trip to get down there, it can be well worth the trip if it is bundled into a whole day worth of adventure.
That is exactly what this day trip down to Macon ended up being. Initially, we had a small itinerary of visiting the Hay House, The Allman Brothers Band museum and a local restaurant for all of our foodie cravings.
To give you a quick rundown, the Hay House is a 150+ year old house located in Macon. The house is full of stories that the guides will gladly tell you about for a small fee. After taking the tour, I was very excited to by a print of a painting of an iconic part of the house. I say that it was iconic becuase the print is of a vase that is located in a recessed area of the wall. The secret is that this is really a door way to a hidden room.
Some clips from this trip can be found in the highlights section on the Instgram page. I may look into building a video for these adventures as well.
After visiting the Hay House, we then set our new destination to be The Allman Brothers Band Museum at The Big House. I can honestly say that I wasn’t always the biggest fan of the Allman Brothers Band but have learned to appreciate them alot in my older life.
As a musician myself, how can you not love the chops on Duane Allman when he is playing slide or when you have Dickey Betts tearing it up on lead. A band of great musicians who put out a great catalog of music deserves to get there props.
Anyways, after visiting the Allman Brothers Band museum we decidedto stop in a local restuaruant and get some food. From there, we realized that we had accomplished everything that we had set out to do but the day wasn’t over yet.
We felt as though we still had plenty of daylight left so we decided to try and find a close spot to do some hiking at. Luckily, me and my girlfriend both keep a large list of hiking places marked on our Google maps so it didn’t prove to be a very difficult task.
After weighing some of our options we both decided that we hadn’t been to a swamp in awhile so we decided that we would visit Bond Swamp. We didn’t really know much about the place but we were hoping to be able to get there in itime so that we could find a great view so that we would be able to see the sunset.
Bond Swamp is a National Wildlife Refugee, located 6 miles from Macon, Georgia. It was established in 1989 to maintain, protect and enhance the forested wetland ecosystem of the Ocmulgee River floodplain.
After parking our car, we headed out on foot for what I am going to describe as a .25 mile hike down a small service road. It was nice to be out in nature and to hear the sounds of the Georgia wildlife.
After reaching the end of the service road, all that we found was a small boat launch with a couple of scenic views.
If you look down to the right, then you will get this view.
Then if you look over to the left, it will look like this.
There was a small trail that went along beside the swamp up to the left. Unfortunately, it didn’t go very far before it dead ended into the swamp.
After hitting the dead end, we made our way back to the boat ramp so that we could sit and relax for a couple of minutes before making the trek back to our car.
While this hike may seem like a bust to some people, I do not feel the same way. This was literally a spontaneous hike that happened after a very fun filled day.
Despite how the hike turned out that day. It is actually kind of appealing to me to revisit Bond Swamp in the future but to take a kayak next time so that we can actually explore the swamp a bit deeper.
So that is how our day trip to Macon ended. I was very pleased with the day overall and would recommend it for anyone who is making a day trip to Macon, Georgia. If you are interested you can find my Macon Day Trip Itinerary on Google Maps. Be sure to follow me there for future itineraries.
Have you ever been hiking in the swamp? If so, I would love to hear about it in the comments down below!
Until then safe travels and I hope to see you down the road somewhere!!!
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