Big Talbot Island State Park

Big Talbot Island State Park is a state park in Florida, United States. It is located on Big Talbot Island, a coastal barrier island 20 miles east of downtown Jacksonville on A1A North and immediately north of Little Talbot Island State Park along the Atlantic coastal plain. The park is a nature preserve and a location for nature study, bird-watching, or photography. Other activities include hiking, bicycling, fishing, boating, canoeing, kayaking, and picnicking. Amenities include picnic pavilions, nature trails, a fishing pier, a boat ramp, bike trails and beaches. The park is open from 8:00 am till sundown year round. The coastal landscape and beach at Big Talbot Island is unique within the state of Florida for its rock-like sedimentary hardpan soil deposits underlying the surface. Where these formations are exposed in the shallow waters surrounded the island they provide habitat for molluscs, crabs, oysters, and other tide pool creatures. The formations and sand on Blackrock Beach are much darker in contrast to the coquina formations at Washington Oaks State Gardens, about 60 miles southward on the coastal highway A1A, and the limestone outcroppings at Blowing Rocks Preserve over 250 miles further south. The beach can be accessed through the park entrance or through the trailhead parking area adjacent to the Blackrock Trail. At the end of the Blackrock Trail is Boneyard Beach. Here, skeletons of oaks sit along the shoreline.