Day 9, Monday March 9th – Exploring the Everglades

We got up Monday and took the scooter straight to the visitor center. There we got the bad news, more high winds, small craft advisories, stay off the water.  We did stop at the Marina anyway and they were going to give a boat ride that did not go out into the bay, but we passed on it.

The hiking trails in the Everglades are all pretty much off the 40 mile road that brings you to the Flamingo, but the distances can be pretty far. We almost went back and got the van but decided to take the scooter up to some of the closer hikes.

The first hike we did was called Snake Bight, it is basically a straight flat trail from the road to the ocean. We saw birds, a crab and a few snakes.  Overall it was just a good walk of 3.6 miles.

The walk came out onto the ocean, but it was low tide not much to see.

Along the path I noticed what looked like a soccer ball in the brush, but it was a mushroom, perfectly round.

On the way back June nearly gave me a coronary when she saw a snake in the trail, he did not seem too concerned about us.








After the hike we decided to head back to camp for lunch, but I saw a sign to Bear Pond, so why not take it. It was more like two wheel tracks thru the jungle for 2 miles.  So we took the scooter 4-wheeling…I mean off roading…June loved it (NOT!). When we got to the parking area for the pond it was about a 2 mile hike each way to get to the pond (another couple coming out  did not sound too enthusiastic about it)….we decided to head back to camp.

After lunch we took the Van to some of the hikes way back, 25+ miles, towards the park entrance.

Our first stop was Pa-hay-okee Overlook. This is the high point in the Everglades, they measure elevation in inches, no kidding.  It is basically a boardwalk on stilts that gives you a bit of a view of the park, 0.2 miles.

Our next stop was Mahogany Hammock which is basically another elevated walkway thru the jungle, 0.4 miles.  I now can recognize a Mahogany tree, they are huge and their limbs are huge, no wonder they make such nice furniture.

We got back to camp about 5:30PM and decided to take one more spin on the scooter before we loaded it up. We rode up to the beach north of the campground.

Again, the wind was cranking, June almost got blown away. So instead of walking the beach which is not that nice anyway, we took the Guy Bradley trail thru the underbrush. It was another good walk but not a lot to see, it came out at the visitor center and once again we had to double back, I hate that.









We took a number of short hikes today, nothing that was hard, everything here is flat, but they added up to about 8 miles of walking. When I loaded the scooter, we had put 35 miles on it, not a lot but it was pretty handy for the short trips.

Our overall impressions of the Everglades are that it is a good place to visit for a few days but unless you are into wildlife photography or kayaking, it is just flat land hiking. Our impression may be tainted by the high winds and somewhat poor weather.  It is apparent from touring this place that it has seen better times. Much of the infrastructure is in disrepair, the campground has a section that is not even mowed, it is huge but unused. I am unsure if someone had grand plans and the people never came or at one time it was a “the” place to visit, but it clearly is not now.  That being said, we do not regret in the least coming here, it is a unique part of our country and I doubt we will ever see anything like it again. The campground itself is very nice, large sites and the people were really nice.

We returned to camp for showers and adult beverages before dinner, life is good.