Travels with rarecat: The Everglades

We made a trip to Florida in February specifically to see the Everglades, and it was truly quite unique. We also visited some sights just outside the Everglades National Park but which are really part of the same broader ecosystem. It is a huge park, with 1.5 million acres of wetlands with three entrances that are not connected to each other.

We visited first the Gulf Coast entrance near Everglades City, doing an airboat tour of the mangrove swamps, followed by another airboat tour of the "rivers of grass" then a boat cruise through the ten thousand islands, the salt water section of the Everglades. That was all done in one day as the timing was right. We drove ourselves to the different spots and saved a bundle by not taking a package tour that did about the same thing.

After a few days on the west coast of Florida, we drove to the east coast via the Loop Road to the Shark Valley entrance. This place was packed but we were lucky to get into the parking lot after a short 5 minute wait as it was mid-afternoon and people were starting to leave. As we didn't want to wait an hour for the next tram tour, we decided to leave and visit the famous Anhinga Trail just inside the east entrance via Homestead further south. As it turned out, timing was perfect for the Anhinga Trail as it was the golden hour by the time we got there. The landscape was quite pretty and we saw the colourful gallinule.

The following day I went all the way to Flamingo, visiting several ponds on the way. That was the day I had my first sighting of the Roseate Spoonbill, first time in flight then on the island on Eco Pond. The following day, we visited Shark Valley again on the way back to the airport. We spent less than an hour on the trail but at least got an idea of what it's like. We saw ibises, egrets, blue herons and lots of anhingas. To top it off, we saw a brood of baby alligators!

It was definitely a worthwhile place to visit and I would have enjoyed it much more if the temperature had been cooler. But then I really shouldn't complain as it was -20 degrees in the north!

PRACTICAL TIPS:
- a car is needed to see the park as it covered huge distances and there are no shuttles
- kayaking and canoeing are good ways to get a real feel for the park as it has a lot of waterways
- there is no need to take a package tour if you have a car and you can do all things in the package tour by driving to the different spots yourself, it is much less expensive and less tiring as your schedule is more flexible.
- there were no bugs when we were there in February, which would not be the case if it were summer

The mangrove swamp can be seen on an airboat tour if you can't paddle; it was quite fun weaving through the mangroves but the airboats are very noisy and definitely would have an impact on the wildlife and the environment. They are technically no longer allowed in the park but the existing operators are grandfathered so they are still operating a thriving business. If you can paddle, it is best to kayak or canoe through the swamp.