Botany Bay 'almost magical'

EDISTO ISLAND — Live oaks cocoon the dirt road to the newest nature preserve open to the public — the first hint of just how singular this place is.

The play of light, shade and massive limbs is awesome and strangely familiar: Botany Bay Road has been photographed so often it's an iconic image of Edisto Island and the Lowcountry. At the road's end is the entrance to a 5,000-acre plantation that was willed by its former owner to the people of South Carolina. On the ocean.

The Botany Bay Plantation Wildlife Management Area was opened to public access this month.

The centuries-old farm is a vista of hardwoods and pine stands, crop fields, salt marshes, hammock islands and a maritime forest beach with its own "boneyard" — a ghost forest of dead trees frothing in the surf. The spread includes a three-mile motor tour trail past 19th century brick and tabby structures, 20 more miles of trails for hiking, biking, birding and horseback riding, fishing ponds and a paddle boat "throw" launch into Osceola Creek.

Read more in tomorrow's editions of The Post and Courier.