And not the one in Westeros
If you are like me and tend to spend time on TikTok mindlessly scrolling through your feed, then you you’ve likely heard of Kings Landing. I had dreamed of going the first time I heard about it. But it was located hours from me and I was a full time stay at home mom of 2 under 2. How on Earth could I make that happen? So I filed that as a future endeavor for when my littles were older.
Fast forward over a year and we’ve relocated to the wonderful Space Coast of Florida and Kings Landing is now just an hour from our new home address. Huzzah!
Since distance was no longer an issue, we figured out childcare. My husband had an unexpected day off from work and we decided to make it happen!
Frantic Planning
That morning I was frantically checking the website for any important information and realized you have to reserve in advance! I could kick myself I was so upset. Our kids were finally both in daycare and my husband had a free day during the week. The planets had aligned and the Gods were blessing us with an opportunity and they were out of kayaks. But, they did have an option to bring our own and pay a fee of $10 per person to use the launch pad.
I knew it was too late to try Amazon so I checked on Walmart and my local store had an inflatable kayak available in the store. I was beaming.
Execution – Off to Kings Landing!
We dumped the kids at daycare as fast as we could and raced to Walmart. The website says you have to have a life vest and so we purchased two of those and left the tags on in case, which was for the best. It turns out you can rent their jackets for free and they do not enforce you to wear it. So we ended up returning the ones we bought since we are both strong swimmers (I’ve done a half ironman, not worried about drowning).
I highly recommend the linked kayak we purchased. It was easy to put together, came with a pump and kept us well afloat with all our things included. It’s especially handy if you don’t have a big car to carry around a regular kayak.
Kings Landing
I can’t preach hard enough about how beautiful this place is. There are two directions you can follow. One leads you towards darker waters, where you can see more animals and it’s a longer trek. The other direction is clearer and a shorter trip. Since we only had a short amount of time to be there (day care hours), we went on the shorter path.
Worth mentioning is that you cannot bring alcohol. However, should you hide is in your cooler under other things, no one will stop you. If you catch my drift (pun intended).
The way down was against the current but not difficult. We definitely bickered about who was slapping whose paddle. Obviously Michael was hitting mine and not vice versa. But apart from that we had such a fun time maneuvering around the Floridian foliage, periodically gliding below the streams of light cutting through the branches above us.
At one point, we came across local homes located along the water. We chatted with a lovely mom and her children. Who were locals to the area. The kids were trying to catch snapping turtles from their dock. Talk about a unique way to grow up!
At the end of the trail we hung out in the water. there were plenty of places along to stop and rest and enjoy. As we did. The way back to the launch pad was 10x better. The current pulls you down without any effort. You can just sit back and enjoy the views.
Overall, it was so inexpensive. Easy to find, easy to navigate and indescribably beautiful. I strongly recommend making the effort to explore this, sort of hidden gem.
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