St Augustine, Florida

St Augustine is the oldest town in the US and the Floridians are very proud of this.  The Spanish landed here in 1595 and established a settlement.  The buildings are lovely and the town is considered the jewel in the crown of Florida.  Below is a lovely little arcade of cafes and shops.

Aviles Street, the oldest street in the town.

The oldest wood school in the US.

The Lightner Museum which used to be a grand hotel - one of the lovely old buildings in the town.

Inside the Castillo de San Marco - the country's oldest masonry fort.  St Augustine was the keystone in the defense of the Florida coast and so Spain ordered the building of a fort made of stone.  In 1672 the fort was begun and took 23 years to build.  It is made of coquina, a locally quarried shellrock.  Many of the homes in the town were also made of this stone and it is still evident today.  Below is a close-up of the rock.

St Augustine was the keystone in the defense of the Florida coast

Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida

The Kennedy Space Center has been the site for rocket launches since the early days of the American space program.  Some early rockets are shown below, including the Titan at left, which was converted from an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile into a platform for satellite launches.

The Apollo program used the big Saturn rocket to send astronauts to the Moon.  The photo below is of the tiny Moon Lander unfolded from inside the Command Module.

After the Apollo program the US moved to reusable shuttles and had over 100 successful flights.  The shuttle was fueled by a large disposable tank (orange) and boosted at the initial launch by two reusable solid fuel rockets.

The Atlantis shuttle completed many flights, including the last repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009.  Shuttles had a large cargo bay used to build and support the International Space Station.

Everglades National Park and the Florida Keys

Everglades NP, at the southern tip of Florida, is a 100-mile-long sub-tropical wilderness of sawgrass prairie, jungle-like hammock and mangrove swamp.  The wilderness has two reasonably civilised campgrounds in the park.  The mosquitoes and little bitey creatures are pretty bad even though this is just after the end of the Florida winter.

Cypress forest

Nikki cycling on an Everglades trail

The Florida keys is a series of sandbanks over some 150 kms, with some expensive housing with water on both sides of the road.  Key West is the furthermost key and it is the southernmost part of the US.  We chose not go down that far - just too long a drive for little profit we thought.  

One of the two lovely little beaches at John Pennekamp State Park at Key Largo where we were very lucky to get in without a reservation.  The state parks became more expensive the further down the Florida coast. This one was $43 a day, the most expensive one so far.  But RV parks are much more expensive than state parks.  

This area also contains the third largest coral reef in the world after the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and one off the Honduras coastline.  We went out on a glass bottom boat to have a look.

The coral is not nearly as colourful as on the Great Barrier Reef.

Starfish - not often seen, we understand.

Coffee at the beachside along the keys.

Fauna in Florida

Some of the creatures that we have come across in our travels, including some quite close encounters.

This diamond-back rattlesnake lying across the path we were cycling on appeared to be about 1.5 metres long and 10cm in diameter.

A close-up of his head although the rattle is in the tail.

This iguana just appeared at the fairly crowded beach we were at.

And a close-up shot.

Florida continued

We have not been updating the blog as we have been travelling in non wi-fi territory a lot.  We came across this delightful sight - and sound - in one of the state parks on a lake - the sound of a lone bagpipe.  It was a Canadian traveller who took up the instrument in his retirement and he gets away to reasonably private spots to indulge his new hobby.

Corvette show in Venice, Florida.  About 250 Corvettes displayed by the proud owners.  

The first Aussies we have come across travelling in an RV like us - Gary and Chris from Adelaide with inflatable Randy the Roo.  I am sure we will come across them again somewhere, they are travelling for six months.

We finally had our air-boat ride.  Noisy things they are.  You just glide over water, grass, the lot.  And you go quite fast too, just stopping to spot and alligator or two on the way.

Highlands Hammock State Park

As we have commented before, the state parks in Florida are each nicer than the last.  Highlands Hammock SP is one of the oldest state parks in Florida with nine different nature trails taking visitors through lush jungle-like foliage with abundant wildlife.

The beautiful cypress swamp.

The trail leads right through the hammock - Indian for a shady place.

A stroll across the elevated boardwalk along the cypress swamp trail offers views of all sorts of wildlife.  Yet another turtle you say, yet another alligator - but see the reflections in the water.  And the wonderfully coloured frog which was 15 cm long.

Day to day activities

RV life is not always smooth.  We had experienced some heavy rain lately and we discovered a small amount of leaking around the air vent and the tv aerial on the roof.

Tiger at the RV hospital, the problem being diagnosed.  At $125 an hour it would have taken approx $500 to have the cracked sealants fixed. They could not fit us in their busy schedule.

So Andrew attended to the problem himself, thereby saving us a fortune - precisely the cost of our bikes and bike rack.  We are now waiting for some more rain to test the efficacy of his work.

This is Lake Jackson at Sebring where we went for a 16 km bike ride right around it - plus 11 kms to and from to the campground we were staying at.  I was quite impressed with my achievement!

An air boat on Lake Kissimmee.  They have an above water propeller which allows them to navigate in shallow waters.

Happiness is having bicycles

Seeing other grey nomads riding around on bicycles on the many cycle paths around Florida proved too much for us.  We had debated whether to get bikes but decided we would not get enough use out of them. Florida however is very flat and we are spending a month here waiting for winter to be over elsewhere in the US so we bit the bullet and bought two bikes at the pawn shop across the road from the bicycle shop that was fitting the bike rack for us.  It cost more than the two bikes combined :-)

Tiger with a new load on the back.

and Nikki in the saddle riding through a trail at Lake Kissimmee State Park.

Lake Kissammee SP has another beautiful camp ground.  These big trees are called live oaks because they are not deciduous, with new leaves coming through as the old ones die off.  Camp spots are very spacious underneath the trees with the sunlight filtering through.

A couple of wildlife shots below.

Red-shouldered hawk.

An armadillo.  The poor creature was dead at the side of the road.  They tend to be mainly nocturnal and we saw one at night but it is hard to catch sight of one during the day.  So we took a photo.

Ocala National Forest continued

There were so may interesting things to see at ONF that one posting does not do it justice.

This is at Hopkins Prairie, one of the campsites where these lovely trees overshadow the path.  The stuff hanging down the trees is something called Spanish moss that makes the trees look like weeping willows.  At a museum back in Louisiana we read that the moss was used, mixed with water and mud to make walls of houses - sort of like plaster.

The pool at Juniper Springs.  This was the least natural of the spring swimming areas but the sandy bottom and the weeds in the pool are still natural.  They have created a pool surround that looks a little more "commercial" than the other swimmable springs.

This is further up the stream where no swimming is allowed.  You can see the spots of turquoise where the sandy bits are on the bottom.  The water is crystal clear and you can see every blade of growth.

An attempt to capture one of the small springs - the water bubbling in the stream.

A boardwalk at one of the springs.  You can see how lush the vegetation is.

A photo of a manatee coming up to breathe which they have to do every 5 minutes or so, unless resting, in which case they can stay in the water longer.  The photo is made possible by our new camera which has a sports setting whereby we can take multiple shots by keeping a finger on the button.

Ocala National Forest, Florida

We are very pleasantly surprised by Florida.  It is a much nicer place than we had imagined.  There are many beautiful state parks all over and the natural environment offers much to see and do.

We spent a week in the Ocala National Forest.  The landscape of the ONF is characterised by four natural freshwater springs.  The shallow sea that once covered much of Florida formed layers of limestone and as acidic rain gradually seeped in, the limestone bedrock collapsed forming springs, sinkholes and caves – all parts of karst topography that we had come across in other places, most recently at the Plitvicka Lakes in Croatia.  These springs in Florida are very picturesque and unlike the Croatian lakes, people can enjoy swimming in them.  The water temperature is a constant 72 degrees all the year around.

Here we are having a lovely dip in the artesian springs at Salt Springs Park.

Andrew hovering around a sinkhole.  At some springs there are deep caves which are restricted to experienced cave divers.





And below we are canoeing at Alexander Springs.

The wildlife around these rivers and waterholes is varied and spectacular.

Turtles we saw on our canoeing trip.

And this is a very large alligator.  They have named her Alice in the park.  Most Florida alligators are smallish and somewhat narrow jawed like the freshwater crocodiles in OZ.  This is one of the biggest around at about 8ft and we were very lucky to catch sight of her.

American alligators, unlike Australian saltwater crocodiles, are not aggressive and are afraid of humans and will retreat. There are signs up to warn people to keep a safe distance but they are not the man-eaters that salties are.




I was nervous being close enough to take photos - hence the slight lack of focus - but in the end she slid into the water and hid under the bank, much to my relief.