The fabled Suwannee River feels as good as it looks, even if the goal is staying in your kayak.

Unfortunately, I know what I’m talking about. This dark water colored by the tannin of the knobby-kneed cypress trees is crisp and cool, startling too on my mid-April unintended spill.

That dunk might be just what I needed to jump start my evening after paddling 10 miles on a beautiful stretch of the new 171-mile Suwannee River Wilderness Trail in north Florida.

Kind of surprised a dozen helpers didn’t appear at my bobble because people work together here. This trail and the region it flows are the result of an extraordinary partnership: state government, private concerns, volunteers, cities, counties and more.

Incredible collaboration shaping a water trail I could paddle all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.  Outfitter in White Springs, Florida said he’d pick me up.

“Plenty of people arrange to put in with canoes or kayaks right here,” Charlie Shaw with American Canoe Adventures said, “and I go get ‘em at the other end.  Not unusual.”

I thought I was joking when I asked him about that.  Seems some outfitters will even deliver hot cooked meals to your campsite.

Easy to overnight along the Suwannee River Wilderness Trail. At mile eight of my float, my little group of four paddlers pulled over to some wide wooden steps connected to a very long switchback-style ramp.  

“River rises fast and high,” says Brenna VanNess, Florida park manager on this trail. “Sometimes we put in up there,” pointing to the top.

We secured our kayaks and trekked the ramp.  Reward for long distance paddlers? Five screened sleeping platforms, roomy enough for a dozen to spread out, raised off the ground with electric lights and a ceiling fan.

Imagine that.  Picnic table and grill I sort of expected.  The bathhouse with real toilets and hot-water showers are another bonus.

Paddlers can alternate between the sleeping platforms, tent camp sites and state parks near community hubs; I stayed only in a well-appointed cabin at the Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park but on a multi-day trip, you can find one or the other every 10 miles or so.

Best way to plan a jaunt is with Suwannee River Wilderness Trail maps, one produced by National Geographic, another by Florida State Parks and Department of Environmental Protection and a third by the partnership called the Paddling Guide.  Each is straightforward and informative.

The Water Management District also has a clear one showing all the boat ramps and canoe launches, plus accessible towns. 

Bunches of those towns, mostly little and with all you need to restock for more curves on this twisting, turning beautiful river. Fun too if you admire people holding on to the charm of their community and preserving it for visitors.

Walter McKenzie is one of them.  He’s a bike rider, paddler and town council member. Long tall drink of water healthy-looking fellow with a passion for White Springs — -its history and its future.

There’s a self-guided walking tour with tasteful signs of words and photos, plus a brochure detailing 21 structures, but I’d recommend asking at the Nature and Heritage Tourism Center if McKenzie might be on a stroll because his enthusiasm about the 200 or more buildings in the historic district is energizing.

“White Springs never really lost its character,” McKenzie believes, “even when the interstate pulled people away from the formerly bustling Highway 41 here.

“We just changed the approach a bit, but we are still all about the healing waters. Used to be soak in the springs, now it’s paddle and tube, camp and walk alongside,” McKenzie notes.

In 1908 that meant newspaper articles calling White Springs the “Fountain of Health” with trains arriving four times a day and people flocking to 16 grand hotels to enter the 72-degree mineral waters.

“Exquisite restaurants, fine entertainment including orchestras from New York City, and the latest fashions were all right here,” McKenzie says.

Today only the Telford Hotel remains with seven rooms to rent and a big buffet restaurant.

Look for musical performances in the hotel every third Saturday except summer months.  “When our Folk Festival is over, we miss the music,” says McKenzie.

This year’s will be the 57th annual May 28-30, the oldest folk festival in the nation.  Food, music, dance, stories, crafts and work life showing Florida culture and history are the focus.

This one’s big, and so is the year-round special event schedule at the Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park.

What a mouthful. Foster’s “Old Folks at Home” song about the Suwannee River is simpler than the title of the center named for him.

Good-looking dioramas in the museum here with moving parts like Fifth Avenue New York City windows at Christmas.  Lovely music all day too with the 97-bell carillon and interesting exhibits on the ground level.

No access to the top to see the bells—three sets of 32 each—200 feet up.

Check in to one of the five, sleeps-six-people cabins and head to the wrap-around screened porch to swing or rock and listen to those chimes. My cabin was squeaky clean, barely in sight of the others, backing the Suwannee River and surrounded with lush vegetation.

RV parks and camping available too with 45 sites at the Stephen Foster center, a lush pretty place with canoe and kayak access to the river, ten miles of trails for hiking, biking and horses.

The Craft Square offers static and hands-on traditional arts: blacksmithing, pottery, stained glass and jewelry making, quilting and basketry.

Music rings out loud and clear all year long at the nearby Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park. This is a privately owned place, envisioned and expanded by passionate people, loving the intersection of music, nature and animals.

“I’ve got the strength of a mountain woman,” says founder Jean Cornett, also the head of the Festival of the Bluegrass in Lexington, Kentucky.  She’s not one to call attention to herself, praising family and staff instead.

If you see a white-haired woman picking up trash from her golf cart, that’s probably Jean. Grand visions and small details seem to be her strength.

Bring $5 because that’s what it takes for a carload to spend the day. Talk about affordable family fun with the white sand beach, 30 miles of walking trails, a wooden double swing hanging from a tall live oak tree, plus panorama views of the water and the land from various decks.

Miniature golf and disc golf too.

Big bucks needed for the concerts but that’s expected for big name entertainment.

B. B. King. The Allman Brothers. Zac Brown Band. Willie Nelson. James Brown. Alan Jackson. Neil Young. Music leaders like that.

Nine huge concerts are on the 2010 schedule that started mid-March and ends Aug. 21 with the Gator Chomp Romp.

Plenty of calm, quiet personal times at Spirit of the Suwannee too.  Eight hundred campsites for RVs and tents plus cabins to rent. These have TVs; Stephen Foster’s do not.

Bring your horse to ride the trails and you can sleep together, with campsites and paddocks joined.  Also a 30-horse stable for some separation.

A canoe and kayak outfitter is on site, making a launch into the Suwanee River Wilderness Trail a breeze.

More to this North Florida region, but I enjoyed all I could in two days.

All that and I didn’t even find out if I could stay on board or tumble into the pristine, crystal clear Ichetucknee Springs.  Better go back for that paddle, or some tubing. Floats are three hours from the north entrance, 90 minutes from the mid-point or 45 minutes from the south entrance.