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Published: September 13th 2013
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A leisurely day today as we moved further south down the east coast on our journey towards the southernmost point of the USA in Key West. After a nice lie in till 8-30 in the sweatbox, a breakfast of bacon rolls and coffee set us up for the day. Detaching all life support this time was a challenge as the heavens had opened...and when it rains in Florida, it really rains! Not wanting to be unplugging 50 amps of electricity whilst standing in a puddle with the rain falling we delayed our departure for half an hour until it had eased off to 'slightly spitting'.
The plan today was to hit the road and stay away from all main roads in the 200 mile drive south. Sadly the A1A is not quite as scenic or scary as its counterpart on the West Coast that we travelled last year but it was still a pleasant, hassle free drive.
We headed out east to the surf capital of the east coast at Cocoa Beach, just south of Cape Canaveral and then turned right heading due south hugging the coast on the A1a. Whilst not as pretty as the west coast and
definitley more populated, there is still plenty to see whether it be the massive beach houses and 'resorts' that line the coast or the various state parks and nature reserves that you drive through. I have never seen so many plush golf courses in my life...you could spend weeks travelling down from course to course.
Whilst the day started off wet, it remained dry for most of the rest of the day and at lunchtime we came across the Sebastian Inlet State Park, set on a river estuary and home to thousands of Pelicans and even more fishermen and boaters. Forgetting we had a fully stocked kitchen 6 feet behind us, we had spent a while searching for a nice restaurant by the sea, quickly realising there was no such thing out here, we parked up at the side of the water and created our own!
After lunch we carried on heading south with only one pitstop for 150 dollars of petrol (40 gallons) which by my rough maths means were getting about 8 miles to the gallon out of the beast! Blocking 6 pumps whilst having to prepay, work out which of the four unleadeds on offer
you need and then getting out again without destroying the 6 pumps is quite a stressful operation, thank god this has a big tank!
As the drive south wore on the heavens opened along with thunder and lightning and we quickly abandoned our plan to do the whole coast road to West Palm Beach and cut inland to find the Turnpike south. 45 mins later we pulled up outside the entrance to the Lion Country Safari Park at West Palm beach (althought it's about 15 miles inland from the beach!)
Attached to the safari park is a KOA camp complete with everything you would expect ( excellent pool, laundry, shop, etc. etc.) but I guess this is a popular one as there are hundreds of pitches on a large grassed area with little/no separation between plots and I' m typing this blog sitting on our camp table looking into the window of the van next door (listening to their two squawking parrots they have brought away with them!) The camp office had closed for the night but they leave you a helpful little pack and map to your spot and ask you pay in the morning... How very
trusting!
Another sumptuous feast whipped up on the barby tonight of ribs, burgers and Teryaki chicken before we retired for a night of wine, beer, the American Masterchef final and American XFactor, it was like a sad Saturday night at home!
Being out in the woods, near a lot of standing water meant the mossies were out in force tonight and we went to bed with the sounds of mossies buzzing, thunder rumbling and chimps fighting (from the safari park over the fence)
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