Fun in Florida (la segunda parte)

In my last post I covered our recent trip to Florida concentrating on those places we visited near to our holiday rental home; this time I will share some of our experience when we travelled slightly further afield in Southern Florida.
First up is a trip to The Ballpark of The Palm Beaches, which is the new spring training ground of the Washington Nationals baseball team and is located in West Palm Beach north of Fort Lauderdale.
Steve had booked tickets for 'the boys' to go and watch the Washington Nats playing the New York Mets whilst 'the girls' went shopping in some huge mall in North Miami (I think it was called Ace Ventura Mall ......or something like that!).
The whole training complex was huge and you were allowed to wander around the training grounds before you went into the stadium. We got a sneak preview of some of the Nats' players having some batting practise before the game:

Washington Nationals in training area

Nats pre-match batting practise underway

After watching the batting practise for a little while we headed into the stadium where we embarked on our own pre-match activity:

Pre-match Hot Dog and Beer

Italian Sausage Hot Dog

Beats a pie and Bovril in a cold football stadium anytime.
After our pre-match warm-up we headed to our seats whilst they prepared the baseball field ready for the start:

Take your seats and get comfy

Watering the field before start

'Get your cold beer, ice cold beer'

The players then came out and started to do a few warm-up exercises (not too many as the temperature was about 90 degrees):

Pre-match warm-ups

Almost ready to start

The teams then came out and the game got underway:

Game on, Mets to bat first

You may have gathered that I don't know too much about baseball and the complexities of the game, but I did enjoy the whole experience and it was well worth going. I recommend it to anyone, but take along someone (like Steve) who can explain what is happening during the game.

Another trip we took was to Oleta River State Park, near Sunny Isles Beach, which sits between the Atlantic Ocean and the intra-coastal waterway in North Miami. It was a very windy day, especially near the waterside:

View of Intra-coastal waterway from Oleta River State Park

The girls at Oleta River State Park

Me and Moira at Oleta

Despite the wind we did see some wildlife here, including an interesting snake which I first thought was identical to the Green Snake we had at the holiday rental, but I now think it is an Everglades Racer:

Everglades Racer Snake?

Everglades Racer Close-up

This snake is supposed to be non-venomous but I gave it a wide berth anyway.
On a pier in the state park we saw a few Brown Pelicans keeping a beady eye on a local fisherman, just in case some stray fish should come their way:

Pier in Oleta River State Park

Pelicans Waiting for Lunch

Moira spotted this Great Egret wandering through the bushes near the car park and I managed to video it before it disappeared:

On the east side of the park you could see the high-rise hotels and apartments on Sunny Isles beachfront, and that is where we headed for a spot of lunch.

Sunny Isles from Oleta River State Park

After lunch we had a stroll (albeit a very windy one) along a pier which juts out into the Atlantic Ocean........... they charged us $2 per head to get on this pier, which is hard for a Scotsman to bear.

Windswept on the pier

Sunny Isles and the Atlantic

Towards Miami

Brown Pelicans on Sunny Isles Pier

I wonder if the Pelicans were charged $2 as well............. looks like they already have a big bill (boom! boom!)

Our next trip wasn't too far from the holiday rental house, just a short drive up Highway 1 to  Las Olas Riverfront in Fort Lauderdale. Just in front of the Briny Pub we boarded a Water Shuttle (river taxi) for a trip down the Tarpon River to Fort Lauderdale Beach:



Moira on Water Shuttle

Danny on Water Shuttle

Mary & Florence on Water Shuttle

It was only a half hour journey but there was a lot to see, including a wide variety of boats on the River Tarpon:

Catamaran passing under bridge

Riverboat (fake paddle boat really)

Gondola for hire

Floating Tiki Bar

It might require a bit of imagination to call the floating Tiki bar a boat, but it was on the water and it did have an outboard motor.
There were also some nice houses on the shore (owned by people with lots of money) and these came in various guises:

Smallish House

Larger House

House for sale

Houses with riverside parking

Houses in this area were popularised in the 1960s by Johnny Weissmuller when he retired to live in Florida and many other actors and celebrities followed suite. For those of you under the age of 60, Johnny Weissmuller was an Olympic swimming champion who play Tarzan in the great movies of the 1930's and 1940's. If you haven't seen the films you should still recognise his trademark Tarzan call.
As the river widens into the harbours of the Las Olas Isles resort the boats become yachts, and the further you go the bigger they get:

Yachts of the rich

Yachts of the even richer

Yachts of the Ridiculously Rich

My personal favourite

Re-possessed

Yes even the ridiculously rich can over-stretch themselves, the yacht Waku above was re-possessed after the owner could not keep up with the payment. May come up on Ebay soon, keep an eye out for it!!
After a bite of lunch at Fort Lauderdale Beach we headed back up the River Tarpon to Las Olas Riverfront, where we boarded the boat earlier. At this point on the river there is nice little museum which was previously a historic hotel in the area. This museum also had a gallery within it and one of the displays was a collection of painted guitars:

On the porch at the Historic Museum



Painted Guitars in Museum Gallery

Right next to the museum is a railway bridge which crosses the River Tarpon. Most of the time this bridge is open to allow the boats to freely pass under it; however after we visited the museum the rail barrier came down to stop us crossing, the bridge lowered and a very long train trundled past.

Train crossing Fort Lauderdale Bridge

This train was so long and pulled so many different goods wagons that it took almost five minutes to go passed. I reckon it must have been about a mile long; I have made a little time-lapsed video of it passing and the bridge re-opening:

When the bridge was up the boats started to move again and when I was watching the large boat going under I noticed that there were at least three large Iguanas on the pier next to the bridge:


Spot the Iguanas

 

There are so many of these non-native Iguanas in the area that they are considered as pests by many residents.

Another area I had always to visit in Florida was the Everglades; others in our party had visited previously but I had not been able to go. I was really pleased when Danny agreed to drive down to the Everglades with me, so we set off in our journey early one sunny morning.
The Everglades is a huge area and as it is predominately wetland (or swampland) there are very few roads that run through it. We joined one such road called the Tamiami Trail (or route 41) which runs from Miami to the West coast of Florida. This road runs in a straight line for about 60 miles before you get to the first bend. Just before the first bend lies Shark Valley Visitor Centre, our destination.
Shark Valley does not contain sharks, but it is a large geological depression, a freshwater wetland which feeds into the Shark River, which in turn feeds into the Gulf of Mexico.
The visitor centre has two trails, one running south in a straight line with a water channel at its side and one that zig-zags its way down in a southerly direction until they both meet at the same point about 7 miles due south (hope that makes sense).
We took the long and windy road, which during the dry season (as it is in March) looks more like a Savannah grassland than a wetland:

Savannah Grassland or Everglades Wetland?

Danny searching for Lions and Giraffes

There were a few places in this dry grassland where you could still see wildlife which reminded you that you were in fact in the Everglades:

Gator sunbathing in dried up ditch

Green Anole

Southeastern Five-lined Skink

The Green Anole pictured above is Florida native, unlike the more common Brown Anole. Seeing a Green Anole in Florida is the equivalent of seeing a Red Squirrel in Britain. This one even took time to crawl down from its leafy bush to display for us (or maybe at us):

After walking for about half an hour in the heat we came across a watering hole which appeared to be full of life. Unfortunately it was about 100 yards away from the road so we could not get really close to it; there was no way we were going to wander across the grassland in case an Alligator was lurking in some muddy gator hole waiting to pounce. It is all too easy to forget that this was not a theme park and that these were not tame animals but were in fact fast moving ambush predators who will eat almost anything (including pale Scotsmen).

Watering Hole at Shark Valley

We had to observe the wildlife at the watering hole from a safe distance, so apologies for the quality of the photographs and videos:

Great Blue Heron Stands Guard

This Great Blue Heron remained almost motionless, until a Great Egret flew over its territory at which point it took to the air to see it off:

Did you see the fish jump?
There were plenty of other birds on shore line such as Cormorant, Green Heron and Tricolored Heron, here is a shaky video of some:

After spending some time watching the various birds around the watering hole we headed back to the visitor centre for a spot of lunch (there is no café there so it was a pre-made packed lunch we had in the car park).
Parked opposite us was a lovely 1960s American convertible, which I thought looked very cool; although I would have to wear a hat to protect my head from the sun:

1966 Pontiac GTO Convertible..........Nice!

Unfortunately these cost around $75,000 and my credit card would not stretch that far............ never mind. At the visitor centre area we also seen a few good birds including this Northern Cardinal (maybe it was on holiday too!):

Male Northern Cardinal

And also this noisy Carolina Wren:

After lunch we headed down the 'straight' trail which runs alongside a water channel:

The Straight Trail at Shark Valley

This is a far more popular trail with visitors as the wildlife is much nearer and more abundant. This is the road they run the little trolley buses down and where those that bring or hire bikes cycle down, so add a few school field trips and you can imagine it is quite busy at times.
One of the first things we saw here was an Alligator making its way to the far bank of the channel:

Gator hiding on far bank of channel

Gators are pretty lazy creatures and don't expend any energy unless it is really necessary. This one would probably sit and hide on this far bank until something swam, crawled or flew close enough for it to grab. They will eat most things including fish, turtles, water birds, etc., and the channel was full of such food. There was definitely fish here:

There were turtles too, such as this Florida Soft Shell Turtle:

And there were plenty of water birds as well:

Great Blue Heron Fishing

Moorhen on log (or is it a Gator's back?)



Cormorant.......'you looking at me?'

These would all be on the Gator's menu if they got close enough to be ambushed.
There were many other interesting birds hanging around the water channel including this Green Heron, which looked like it was about to walk a tight-rope with a stick for balance:

Another colourful water bird we saw was a Purple Gallinule; this bird has huge feet which enables it to walk on water lily pads, however this one decided to climb a spindly tree to get to a water lily flower to eat:

It is a bird not well adapted for climbing in branches and when it stretched to reach the water lily flower it fell off, it did however manage to grab the flower on the way down, so a success if a bit clumsy.

Purple Gallinule falling from tree

Perhaps the Gallinule was in the trees rather than on the water lily pads for a reason; there was a large predator in the water nearby:

Big Gator

In fact this big Gator, which must have been almost 1.8 metres (6 foot) long, didn't seem to be bothered about anything as it swam passed us:

We kept a safe distance on the bank whilst it swam passed, just in case it didn't like being filmed.
In a water pool amongst the trees in the other site of the track we came across an Alligator's nest with a couple of baby Gators in it:

Baby Gator in nest

Unfortunately a crew of grass-cutters went passed in their noisy lorry, which chased one of the baby gators off the nest:

The baby Gators were a lot less scary than the adults, but we had to bear in mind that there could be a mummy Gator lurking nearby so we did not get too close to the nest.

That is it for our Florida trip, hope you enjoyed the photographs and videos as much as we enjoyed the sights and sounds of Southern Florida.

Take care (and mind the Gators)

TeddyEdward