BAD TRAVELS

The Everglades

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Gators and crocs and birds and bugs...oh my! You gotta visit this place someday. Check out the BLOG!

Park rangers told us this trail was a must see for wildlife, they weren’t kidding!

The female Anhinga, namesake of the trail

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This is the male Anhinga and the green feathers around his eyes mean he’s found a mate.

They’re aquatic birds, they dive for their dinner and are really beautiful when they swim underwater.

Caught one!

Cormorants, another diving bird....these guys are pretty common

Gators and black vultures just hanging out together....shows you just how close you can get to these guys on the trail.

“Pretty bird"

So they say you shouldn’t get closer than 15 ft. to gators.....but.....

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They hang out so close to the boardwalk I could have kneeled down and touched this guy....so tempting to put Mikey on his back for a pic!

This was a big guy!

Loved this pose...aren’t they “cute”. Almost good enough for the cover of a mother’s day card!

After the cold weather, all these guys were trying to do is get some heat to digest dinner from a few days ago.

Yup, I know you’re thinking it, this looks like a gator orgy and the huge guy on top looks really, really happy doesn’t he?

If you can read the plaque it talks about how periodic freezes help eliminate the non-native fish which will ultimately help native fish survive. The recent cold snap killed LOTS of them

Another victim of the cold...found this little guy in the sink in the women’s bathroom. Just in case he was still alive, we tried to warm him up by putting him in this black shoe in the sun but no luck. :-(

Thought the story behind this tree was interesting...

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The Gumbo-Limbo’s bark does remind you of a sunburnt tourist doesn’t it!

3 1/2 hr canoe trip with park ranger on 9 mile pond thru lots of mangroves. Everything was supplied and it was FREE! What a deal! All that white stuff in the water is Periphyton, explanation, next pic

This was Ranger Joyce, she was great. She let each canoe take the lead throughout the trip. You had to look for markers, without which you could easily get lost in all the mangroves..they all look the same.

A big croc we saw on our trip

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And his neighbour, a big alligator. Notice how dark this guy is compared to the croc.

We stayed at the Flamingo campground, right on Florida Bay for most of our stay in the Everglades. It’s about an hour drive from the park entrance.

Our Flamingo campground site, they were very spacious

Sunrise over Florida Bay

Another sunrise over Florida Bay.

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One of the many park trails, here you can see how flat and wet it is.

But there are pockets of trees where the elevation gets a bit above the water.

Most of the Everglades look like this.

Not used to seeing Elevation signs like this....Wow a whole 4 ft!

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Glad we went on this trail, hammocks are pockets of trees that grow in the higher elevations amongst the grassy flatlands

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Little pockets of palm trees.

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It’s a totally different world in here.

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One of the biggest Mahogany trees in the hammock.

Marina in the Flamingo Campground

Even the native fish like these big (2-3ft) Tarpon died when they couldn’t find warmer water. They were floating all over the marina. Lets just say the park vultures will be getting really fat!!!

The marina crocodile.

Our bike “ride” in muck to a beach. I use the word ride loosely because for the most part, we pushed them along this really slippery stuff.

And this is what we biked/walked for 2 hours for in such nice weather! Yes the sky, the water and the beach are the same lovely grey colour. Just “beautiful” don’t you think?

And to top it off, we had to abandon our bikes and walk thru this muck, at times knee deep, just to get to and back from that lovely beach!

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But it was an adventure and a good, muddy work out...not entirely sure that the many mosquito bites I ended up with were worth it though. Man I scratched for days after this.

Different landscape again, this was a trail in the Pole pine part of the park.

Camped up in the Long pine campground, close to the park entrance on the last night.

10 minutes outside the Everglades is this busy fruit stand, at which we loaded up on oranges and grapefruit. They’re famous for their $5 fruit milk shakes. I had a coconut one for lunch and I was stuffed...so good!

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