Florida Everglades, December 2018
On December 26th Lesley and I left her parents’ Florida home and headed for Everglades National Park. After three and a half hours we rolled through the gates of the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center entrance in Homestead, FL on our way to our first campsite at Long Pine Key Campground. Long Pine Key is 7 miles in from the gates, it is the smaller of the 2 campgrounds which can be accessed from the Homestead, FL entrance.
Upon arriving at Long Pine Key, we made our way to site 100, which would be our home for the next 3 days. Right away we were pleasantly surprised with the amount of privacy the sites offered. We have been to several campgrounds before and have always felt that the sites were much too close together and lacking privacy. Lesley has always referred to this as “subdivision camping”. One very important fact to note is that Long Pine Key does not have “hook ups”. There is a place to dump your grey and black water tank and a fresh water fill station but both are at the front of the park, near the entrance. Your site will have a picnic table and a fire pit and nothing else. We knew this going in and were not worried as we have 200 watts of solar on our little trailer. There are several bathrooms and showers on site; however, only one set of showers is equipped with hot water. We learned this the hard way. They will give you a map on your way in that labels which showers have hot water and which do not.
On day 2 we chose to hike the Long Pine Key Nature Trail. This is a 6 mile, one way trail. If you choose to hike this all in one day you will need to either turn around at the end and hike back or you can hike the road back around to the campground, but this is even longer than hiking the trail in reverse. My advice would be to hike half way in and then back out. In all honesty, if you have seen 3 miles of this trail, you've seen it all. The scenery is all the same and doesn't really change much. There is a lake at the far end, but this lake can be accessed by car, as it is only 500 ft or so off the main road.
Day 3, the day after our 24km hike we decided to hike a few of the short lookout trails and boardwalks that are easily accessed from the main road. We started with Anhinga Trail, this is a long boardwalk about 3 miles in from the main gate. This will be the busiest trail you will walk in the south of the park but it is also the trail where you will see the most wildlife. Make sure you bring your camera, there will be a plethora of birds and alligators to take pictures of.
On the afternoon of day 3 we left the Everglades and drove into Homestead, FL to grab some supplies. We also took this opportunity to visit a brewery and have some dinner. About 10 miles from the main gate lies The Miami Brewing Company. If craft beers are your thing I highly recommend stopping in for a flight. Every beer I tried, I enjoyed, especially the Gator Tail Brown Ale. This was a smooth, slightly sweet coffee ale that tasted like cold brew coffee. Be sure to pick up some brewvenirs to take home with you!
Flamingo Campground
Day 4 was moving day, we packed up and headed off to Flamingo Campsite about 40 miles further into the park. We had to check out of Long Pine Key by 10 am and couldn’t check-in to Flamingo until 1 pm, this gave us the opportunity to hike more of the small side trails along the main road. These trails and overlooks are well marked and easy to access. Even with the trailer on the back of the truck we had no trouble parking at most of them. As you get a little closer to Flamingo you will find a few trails that only offer a small pull-off for parking, we skipped these and made plans to hike them after the trailer was set up at Flamingo.
Flamingo Campsite is much larger than Long Pine Key and offers sites with electricity. Unfortunately, all of the electric sites were booked when we made our reservation. Again, with our solar we were prepared for this. The biggest difference was the privacy. Flamingo is basically a giant open field with a hundred campsites; while these sites do offer you ample space, there is virtually no privacy. This was the case for both the RV camping loop and the tent camping loop. One other important difference is that both showers at Flamingo did not have any hot water. This was a much bigger deal for Lesley than it was for me, but is definitely worth noting, especially if you can’t handle cold showers. One very nice feature to Flamingo is the Marina. About one mile from the entrance to the campground is a Marina with ice, firewood, and some convenience items for sale. You can also rent canoes, kayaks, boats or sign up for tours of Florida Bay or the interior rivers and lakes of the park. The marina also had hot food if you wanted to grab a quick, easy lunch or dinner.
Snake Bight Trail
On day 5 we headed back up the main road to hike some of the trails we couldn't park at with the trailer. Most of these are short half mile boardwalks; however, there are a couple longer 1.5 mile one way trails you can hike. Snake Bight Trail is one of these longer hikes and was the first trail we hiked that had the terrain we expected of the Everglades. Snake Bight is narrow, overgrown trail with a small river on one side and vast swamp on the other. There were several areas along the bank of the river that looked as though alligators had been coming out and bedding in the grass. Some other hikers claimed to have seen an eight foot python on the trail but we did not see any wildlife other than birds. At the end of trail, there is a small boardwalk that looks over a vast swampy area that was mostly mud at this time of year.
Day 6 was our final full day in Everglades National Park. Our plan was to hike the 6 mile Coastal Prairie Trail to Clubhouse Beach. The names of both of these are deceiving. The Coastal Prairie Trail started out as a comfortable single track trail through dense forest, but after half a mile turned into muddy swamp land. We hoped we would eventually walk out of the swampy mud back onto dry trails, but after 2.5 miles of trudging through mud we decided to turn around and abandon our plans to visit Clubhouse Beach. We met some other hikers on the trail who informed us that the mud never subsided and that Clubhouse Beach was more of a muddy swamp than a beach, which convinced us we made the right decision in turning around.
Just outside the entrance to Flamingo Campground is Eco Pond, this is a short 1 mile loop around, you guessed it, a pond. We had hoped to see lots of wildlife here; however, we walked the whole trail without seeing so much as a single bird. It wasn't until we were back at the trail head, we heard the telltale screech of a bird of prey. After looking around a little more we found a beautiful Red Shouldered Hawk sitting up in a tree. Luckily he or she was more than willing to pose for a few photographs.
Our final day we decided to break camp nice and early so we could do Anhinga Trail one more time on our way out of the park. After seeing all the wildlife the first time, I wanted one more chance at getting some photographs before we headed down to Key Largo. Our second time around Anhinga was not much different than the first, lots of birds and alligators. We were lucky enough to see a Anhinga swimming around catching fish.
After an hour or so of wandering Anhinga Trail we decided it was time to make our way out of the park and toward our next stop, Key Largo. It had been a great trip and I had gotten more great photographs than I had expected. We left Anhinga and made our way toward the main road. After turning back onto the road out of the park we noticed a commotion up ahead on the side of the road. As we slowed to check out what was going on, we noticed an alligator resting in the sun about 4 feet off the road. My first inclination was to keep going, the light was harsh and I didn’t think stopping would yield any usable photographs. I’m not sure what changed my mind but I thought to myself, “What the hell, we’re not in a hurry; we’re on vacation”. Am I ever glad I did. After parking and walking over to where the alligator was, I noticed a little movement in the tall grass. It was then I realized this alligator was a Mother, and all around her were tiny baby alligators. For me this could very well have been a once in a life time opportunity. I had to get a little closer to Mama then I probably should have, but these are some of my favorite images that I have ever taken.
Our trip to Everglades Nation Park was amazing in every way. I have no doubt that we will make a return trip one day.