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| Freshwater marsh |
First things first! I did everything I could do to load the gator/turtle video I promised you, and although I had much better connections, my efforts were for naught. Please accept this slideshow of the encounter. If you click really fast, you can pretend it’s a video!
(archiving of this post precluded loading the photos in slideshow form)
Next up, we continued south to check out the Everglades. We’d chosen to stay just outside the park in Big Cypress Nat’l Preserve (BICY) at Midway Campground.
It came highly recommended by more than one of our friends, and as the name suggests, it sits about midway between the eastern- and western-most points of the national park. It is also close to the Shark Valley Visitor Center and its 15-mile paved bikeway along which much of the park’s wildlife can be viewed. The bad news was that due to all the water that we’d encountered at KPPSP, which is at the headwaters to the Everglades, the whole Shark Valley area was closed by flooding. That left us with eleven days at a campground with nothing to do inside it, nothing to do without a bit of a drive, no phone/internet, and no showers. We knew all this ahead of time, so while I still had good internet, I made lists and downloaded maps. We could have shortened our stay and done something else, but I just didn’t have the patience required for canceling and re-arranging one.more.thing right now. We were pleasantly surprised – and grateful – that the site offered 50-amp service when all of the online info says it’s only 30-amp. If you know about RV power, you’ll understand that 50A allows both a/c units to be run at the same time, and if you know southern Florida, even in December, you’ll empathize.
Our first outing was to spend the day driving west on the main road, Hwy 41 aka the Tamiami Trail (pronounced strangely as “tammy-ammy”) and stop at each point of interest along the way, culminating in a stop at the Big Cypress Swamp Welcome Center. Our first stop was at the Oasis Visitor Center.
The biggest attraction here, other than the restrooms (maybe that’s just me) and the phone reception, is the boardwalk along the slough from which you can see down into the surprisingly clear tea-colored water and safely observe the big alligators sunning themselves. The chain link is just to discourage them from wandering onto the VC grounds directly — they’re not caged at all.
It is also where the Florida Trail, one of the National Scenic Trails, ends (or begins if you begin there). We walked out a short way, and lamented the fact that it, too, was under too much water in several places for us to be able to hike it in any appreciable manner.
Next stop on our westward tour was the Kirby Storter Roadside Park.
This park features a one-mile roundtrip boardwalk on which we welcomed the chance to stretch our legs while viewing the dwarf cypress swamp without having to get our tootsies soaked.
Because this park wasn’t that far from our campground, we made plans to re-visit later in the week. We next pulled over at the H.P. Williams Roadside Park, which offered a much shorter boardwalk, a nice picnic area, and views of more birds and gators.
The next day we repeated the drive, without the stops, and headed directly to the cute town of Everglades City. We scoped out a future biking route and the café where we planned to have our monthly meal out, and then onto the Gulf Coast VC, where we checked out the prices on tour boats and kayak rentals and reluctantly decided against both. On the drive back, we drove over – without squashing — a huge Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnack. If that’s the only one of the country’s largest species of rattlesnack we ever see, I’m completely fine with that.
After a down day spent cleaning and walking circles around the campground’s 1/3-mile loop, our biggest adventure was undertaken with a two-hour drive to EVER’s southernmost visitor center, Flamingo. I popped in and chatted with the rangers to get the scoop on which trails or areas weren’t under water and where the best critters were being spotted. They gave me some good ideas and also directed me to start at the adjacent marina to see something that can only be seen there in the U.S.
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| Can you see it? |
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| There ya go. |
Alligators? Haven’t we covered those already? Oh no, my friends. These are not alligators. These are crocodiles. In the United States. Of America. Crocodiles. Did you know that? ‘Cause we didn’t. Moreover, you probably won’t see alligators this far south in the Everglades since the water is too salty for them, and this is the only place in the U.S. where they are native. Let’s rent a kayak! Not.
But, hey, know what else was puttering around the waters of the marina? Manatees, and plenty of them!! The water was too turbid for us to bother with pictures, but we had a ball watching snoot after snoot pop up as they snoofled for air.
From there, on the ranger’s recommendation, we drove to the very end of the park’s main road to walk around Eco Pond.
We’d hoped to see some Roseate Spoonbills, but we saw almost no birds at all. The grass around the pond was nicely mowed, though, making for a pleasant half-mile walk with pretty views.
Again on the ranger’s advice, we stopped along the route back to hike the Snake Bight Trail. As well as the obvious play on words, a bight is a curve or recess in a coastline, river, or other geographical feature.
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| TBG’s mind was on bites of the snake variety. |
Again, we were hoping to spot some of the special birds we’d not yet seen. Even though the trail seemed to be cleared especially for us, the crew didn’t go all the way to the end where it reaches the open water, and because of that, neither did we. It wasn’t the most scenic of trails by any stretch, but it gave us some distance, and we did get a glimpse of a Roseate Spoonbill as it flew away from our approach.
Our final stop at Royal Palm was our favorite. Two short but popular trails begin from the small interpretive center, the Anhinga (named for the bird) and the Gumbo Limbo (named for the tree.)
As you can see, the trail is asphalt that becomes a lovely boardwalk loop. A passerby passing by the opposite direction alerted us to a “pretty big gator” at the end of the spur boardwalk, so we headed that way to see it, but also because we were hoping to spot a particular bird. We reached the end of the spur, easily spotted the not-really-that-big gator down below the boardwalk, and scanned the marsh for birds. Unbelievably, we heard a squawking, and out popped not one, but two shimmering Purple Gallinules!
Again, these are not rare birds, but they have a limited U.S. range. This pair did not make it easy to get great, unobstructed pictures of them, but what a treat to have them appear just as we showed up! Maybe we’ll see more of them before we’re done with Florida, but if not, this was a happy sighting.
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| Spiny softshell turtle. |
Other than the sea turtles we saw in Hawaii, this was the largest wild turtle we’d ever seen, easily topping two feet across its leathery shell.
We ended our visit with the short walk around the lumpy asphalt of the Gumbo Limbo Trail. It felt like a sweltering theme-park greenhouse, but the butterflies were pretty.
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| Julia butterfly |
In our “down” days at the campground, we very briefly ventured outside after dark on the 15th to take in a bit of the Geminid meteor shower. Mosquitoes drove us in, but we did manage to see a handful of very long shooters. We walked and pedaled around the camp loop to keep from going crazy, and one day, after wondering aloud what the metal pole thing at the edge of the pond was for, a park host attached several plastic gourds to it, and TBG called out, “It’s for bird houses! They just put them up!” I came running to see, then slipped on my sandals and immediately hustled up to the camp hosts to grill them on this new development. I learned they were for Purple Martins, and all of the park’s campgrounds erect them to host colonies of the birds. They didn’t show up during the remainder of our visit, though.
Our second visit to the Kirby Storter boardwalk yielded more bird sightings, although precious few good photographs. Two girls alerted us to “a really big turtle” at the end of the boardwalk, and when we arrived, I saw a large hard shell turtle escape-diving and figured that was the one. Upon further inspection, we spotted two more.
An itty-bitty baby hard shell (on the log) and another big pig-nosed spiny softshell.
Putting our reconnaissance from a few days prior to use, TBG hitched the bikes to Hond, and we drove into Everglades City again. We parked at the Gulf Coast VC, then biked south until the paved sidewalk trail ran out and back again.
Then it was time for a treat! Everglades City is known as the Stone Crab Capital of the World, thus we could hardly leave the area without sampling some. We’d never heard of stone crabs, and I was intrigued to learn that they are a sustainable source of seafood because they’re not killed when they’re harvested. Say what?! It’s true! They can only be harvested from Oct. 15 – May 1, just one 2.75”+ claw may be taken from each crab, and it can’t come from an egg-bearing female. All of that adds up to make it the most expensive seafood per pound in the U.S., but the claw size is generous, and you don’t need much to make a meal.
We chose a well-known cafe for our lunch, not only for its stellar reviews but also for its funky style and ample outdoor patio area overlooking the water. TBG started us off with an appetizer of frog legs, a dish I’d had before, but he had not. Like gator, they really do taste like chicken, and Camellia’s were very tasty “chicken.” When our crab arrived, I was surprised that it was served cold (the “Miami way”) but it was delicious, and we both agreed it was worth the price. Naturally, we had to get the classic Florida state dessert to take home.
A big chunk of our last couple of days was spent up the road from our campground at Monument CG, where we could park for free and get good phone signal. Even though this camp was mere minutes away, unlike where we were staying, it had just about every kind of water bird in the area, plus gators!
We had a nice spot in the shade where I could blog and TBG worked on his latest leather project. We even had a gator supervisor just across the road.
Even with better signal, it took a maddening amount of time for me to get most of the way done with my blog post on KPPSP, and we returned very early the following morning so I could finish.
I hope you all, Faithful Readers, had the best holiday you could have. Join me on NYE for the highly-anticipated, much sought-after, and most wonderful post of the year — my annual Critter Round-Up!
COMMENTS
Happy New Year, we’ll join your toast to a much happier New Year!
But even without Shark Valley, you certainly made the most of your long, long stay at Big Cypress. You even explored Flamingo and had lunch at the Camellia Street Grill! As you know, that’s where I had my birthday lunch a few years ago. I’d go back. And I’d get stone crabs! You guys did it right.
You’re making me want to go back to the Everglades and go to Flamingo. I have traumatic childhood memories of too many fishing trips with my parents (mosquitoes/heat/humidity) and have been afraid to return. But now I want to go. See? You make it appealing, even when you were flooded out!
I remembered you had your birthday lunch at Camellia, and the fact that you said all the local law enforcement was eating there was all the recommendation we needed! I think that post of yours was one that got caught in the update fiasco because I don’t think there are pics of your lunch there?
You’d like the Flamingo area this time of year. Still some skeeters, but not bad, and all the cool critters are hanging out!
We still have not made it down to Everglades and I want to… but how many different murderous creatures can one place boast? Crocodiles? Really? Seems unnecessary (cool… but unnecessary).
I also didn’t know about the stone crabs. I’ve heard of them, but don’t think I’ve ever tried them. But that’s pretty neat that you can just chop their arms off and they’re all: “no biggie! I’ll just go without!!”
Anyway, sorry about the flooding. It would be fantastic if you could send some of that rain out here. We’ve got the complete opposite problem. 😦
Isn’t that cool about stone crab? They share their deliciousness AND they live!
I will send good thoughts for rain for you. Why can it never spread out appropriately?!
Seeing the crocs was cool — I had no idea! Those purple Gallinules are just ridiculously colorful. We saw some common gallinules not long after that, and they had colorful beaks but plain feathers. The drab cousins!
Happy New Year to you, too!
Happy, safe New Year to you, too!
Im not too crazy about stone crabs which we first tasted in Connecticut but was pleasantly surprised with your tidbit that they are not killed but simply decapitated and let go 🙂
At first I was sad that we don’t have big freezer space to load up on seafood, but I’ve decided that except for a few dishes, I don’t like cooking seafood. I think I’ll let the restaurants take care of it from now on!