A swamp, not a jungle

On the recommendation of the Ranger yesterday, we did two hikes. We left in the morning to beat the heat. Behind the Ranger station is the start of the Florida National Scenic Trail, or more accurately the Southern Terminus. This trail is a 1500 mile trail that leads to the Gulf Islands National Seashore. The first couple of miles are just ok. We took the orange trail and didn’t see anyone else until after we had turned around.

For the afternoon, we drove the loop road. It’s a long drive on a two lane dirt road with a good chance to view animals. Unfortunately there are no pullouts, so people just stop in the lane to view animals or fish, which makes a bit of an obstacle course. It does get paved eventually, and there was a really nice but short walk in the shade At the Tree Snail Hammock trail.

For this morning, we got off the waitlist and onto the ranger-led canoe trip. There is one navigable river in Big Cypress but the water level is currently very low so you can’t get very far. We saw a lot of wildlife. There were many different birds including herons and osprey. We also saw a lot of alligators. The ranger told us to just keep our distance from them. At one point we were ahead of the group and Greg noticed a log floating near us. The ranger pointed out that it was an alligator and not a log. Greg didn’t believe her. He still doesn’t.

Along the paddle, Greg made a few jokes from the Jungle Cruise, like pointing out some of his favorite trees. I said that there is no back side of water, to which he responded “This is a swamp cruise, not a jungle cruise.”