Coming prepared is important. Besides a bathing suit, it would be wise to have a long-sleeve shirt…read moreand hat (or a huge tub of sunscreen), some sort of water shoes, and some way of protecting your devices. I got a watertight bag for my phone. They say they'll store your keys, but they didn't remind me and in my haste to hit the water I somehow floated the entire distance with my super expensive electronic car key in my pocket, which neither fell out nor was any the worse for wear, miraculously.
You have to pay to get into the state park where this endeavor begins, which in total brings the cost to around $40 a head or so. Which for me was not bad given the experience. I received help getting the tube down to the water and they had some watercraft at the end to gently bump me to shore. They say floating down the river takes two hours; it doesn't seem that long a distance but it is a slow-moving river and my trip took around two and a half hours in the water. Obviously, you can slow yourself down or speed yourself up. The shores of the river were verdant, with frequent houses and docks and a lot of signs saying to stay off of various people's private property (fair enough), but I still managed to find a bit of beach for a brief respite, and the trip ends at a sandbar.
Various powered watercraft whizzed by, but they mostly just caused some pleasant waves. Conditions will vary, but I found the water immensely pleasant on a summer day, and on the water I didn't have a huge mosquito problem (I did apply repellent). The depth was such that during much of the trip I was actually floating and could not touch the bottom, but there were certainly places where you could. The inquiring mind wonders whether alligators, snakes, bull sharks, or some other river monster is hiding beneath the murky water, but I observed no such creatures (as a one-time Australian, there's no way I'd get into an Australian river where I couldn't see what was around me). The bottom was mostly sandy, but did occasionally have branches and things, and water shoes do help. I underestimated how much time my legs would spend out of the water and did not apply sunscreen to them; I wish I'd either done that or just carried sunscreen in some container.
The end area had brightly colored trip employees to shepherd you in using watercraft, as well as a volleyball net and picnic area for those so inclined. A bus brings you in short order back to where you started. A trip through the surrounding countryside suggests a pastoral, relatively natural environment, and driving through it I always wished there were more tourist opportunities to experience this unique landscape and dodge the heat. Turns out, this is the place.
