Nature Trails - and Snorkeling!

 

Have we mentioned that we love living in Florida? It's been a while since we've headed south to do some exploring, so when the John Pennekamp nature trails on Key Largo came up in the hiking book, we were excited to plan our visit. It is a bit of a drive, so at first we thought we'd try camping for a night or two. However, there weren't any available slots; we made it a day trip instead. Note to self: plan far in advance when it comes up as our next state park to visit. 


We didn't get very far on the first nature trail! It was a boardwalk through the mangroves that apparently got a lot of use. Or maybe a hurricane destroyed it. In any case, we can hope it will be repaired before we return.


A little swimming beach - Far Beach - was adjacent to that parking lot, which had views of the main swimming area - Cannon Beach. We decided we'd try snorkeling there after doing the other nature trail.



The playground needs repairing as well!


We found the next trail at the north end of the main parking lot. It was a pleasant walk to an old citrus grove.


Then we discovered that since our hiking book had been published, they had created a third nature trail. The Tamarind Trail labeled all the various trees to be found in the park.


This was an interesting feature - an old exploration well. We didn't believe the sign which said it produced 580 gallons per minute. Maybe that was true in 1965, but not today.


There's an unmanned visitor's center we can explore later.


We'll plan on eating at the cafe in the future as well.


And we're looking forward to taking a boat out to do some more snorkeling and sightseeing someday, too.




After lunch we spent a delightful hour or two snorkeling in the beautiful little bay, and then we finished our delightful day by stopping at Robert Is Here in Homestead for milkshakes. I had a Passion Fruit-Jackfruit combo and Wayne tried Blueberry. As expected, both were scrumptious.

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