Photo Gallery

Day Trip to the Everglades

Click here to read the story

Our first stop was a nation park along the old highway 41, a really peaceful spot and we were the only visitors there

A nice trail to take through the mangroves

or so we thought, it wasn't until we got on the trail that we realised why no one else was there. The place was alive with mozzies. I have never seen so many in all my life. We came prepared but nothing could have prepared us for this!

What fools!! Here we are thinking how nice the walk will be and how we will be able to amble through and admire all the wild life

Mum ended up Morris Dancing her way through to try and get the mozzies off of her face and neck

and the nice walk turned into a wild sprint back to the car, we never saw any wildlife, just a green blur as we dashed back!

We all saw the funny side of it though, even when we got home and saw that we had all been bitten alive, through clothing and 100% Deet insect repellant!

Back in the car park by the lake we spotted our first Everglades Alligator which was very exciting

What are you mad??? Paddling into the swamp infested waters, with enough mozzies to kill a cow in seconds and alligators waiting for a tasty morsel??!! (The guy had no legs too! He was either very hardy or completely off his rocker!!)

Luckily no where else we went had quite so many mozzies and we managed to take enjoyable walks on the boardwalks through the Everglades

Although we did have to wrestle snakes

giant grasshoppers

and alligators!

They were only babies

but this one wasn't. We had all been standing right in front of him leaning over trying to find a turtle that had just plopped himself in the water. We thought it was a lump of wood until Stuart finally realised it had 2 beady eyes and nostrils. It could have been a Crocodile Dundee moment!

Mum and dad are well into the swing of the native life style now and are off searching for the wild panthers

There were pretty flowers too

Yeah, we made it to the end of the trail in one piece!

We decided that a trip to the Everglades wouldn't be complete with out a ride on an air boat, so we stopped off at a place called:

Booked our ride then waited in the the gift shop to be called out to the boat

This was the nearest we got to wrestling alligators!

Here's one we caught earlier

Whilst in the gift shop the local sheriff came in and warned the workers that there was a lunatic on the loose and could be heading this way! A woman had been found in the boot of a car not to far away, the guy who was driving the car had run off on foot in our direction, presumably to hide out in the Everglades until the heat wore off! I don't think they found him, he is probably still hiding out with the gator's! It was all very exciting there were helicopters and everything, a real man hunt. I would like to think that the Governor with his shower cap and flag kilt has found him and is teaching him a lesson in there!! (You would have had to have read a Carl Hielsen book to understand what I am rambling on about!)

anyway back to the plot! Here are the air boats

and us all trolling on board

Our friendly captain

Are you ready?

Whooooooosh!! (Well its another boat coming back not us but we are ready!)

out into the mangroves

Block your ears and hold onto your hats, its a noisy one!

Weeeeeeeeeee

Stopping for a bit of information on the area

and to see a bit of the wildlife

After our adventure we headed off to Everglades City for lunch, I don't know what the requisite for a city is here but it certainly doesn't have to contain many people or houses! It was more like Everglades Village! A very pretty place though

We stopped in Susie's Station Restaurant and Museum

A real nice place, the food wasn't brilliant but the interior was well worth it

Click here to read the story