Tuesday, February 4, 2014

The Everglades National Park



We arrived at The Everglades National Park on Monday the 3rd of February, taking the day to setup camp and settling in at the Flamingo Campground.


On Tuesday we took a boat up the canal to Coots Bay then thru another canal to Whitewater Bay. A long the way we saw Osprey, Hawks, Blue Heron, Great White Egrets, Turtles, several Crocodiles. We saw no Alligators this day; this would be left for tomorrow. We also saw various plant lives including a tree that can kill you. Just touching the tree will make you hand rot off and if you eat the red berries you will rot from the inside out. Indians would lace their arrows in this to kill their enemies.


You click on the image to view them larger and if the Caption is a Hypertext then click on the link to take you to that web site.  
Osprey in Her Nest near the Marina
Crocodile laying on tree branch in water... 3 foot.
Crocodile supporting it's self between two rocks and sunning
Blue Heron
Crocodile


Wednesday the 5th we set out on an airboat tour. You have to leave the Everglades National Park to do this because airboats are not allowed in the park; they are too destructive to the Eco. We chose Buffalo Tigers Fla. Everglades Airboat Rides. We choose a private tour with a small airboat, the Indian tour guide (Fabian), Kathie and me. The other option was to take a very large airboat (bus) with 30 other people and was a 45 minute trip. The private tour we took was 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours or 4 hours, we chose the 3 hour tour. This was the highlight of the everglades. About at the 2 hour mark I was thinking that we should have made this 4 hours instead. But at the end the 3 hours was enough. We saw all sorts of birds, plant life and yes alligators, 7 or 8.


Great-tailed grackle
The Glades Saw-grass
Alligator
Blue Heron
Mottled Duck
Purple Gallinule
Purple Gallinule
Alligator
Alligator
Alligator - Count you fingers. No that is not me
it is our Indian Guide
Flower - Fragrant White Waterlily
Flower - Swamp Lilly
Flower - Spider Lily
Our Indian Guide and Raccoons following
Our Airboat for 3 hours



On Thursday the 6th we when to Key West, the most southern point in the US. On Friday a day of nothing and Saturday travel to our new campsite in South Bay south of Lake Okeechobee. The campground is South Bay RV Campground.


No comments:

Post a Comment