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Published: November 29th 2007
Today we took a trip to the Florida Everglades. And literally, that's pretty much all we did - we spent more time travelling in the minibus than we did actually in the Everglades. En route, we even crawled along the hard shoulder of the interstate (which I'm sure can't be legal) for about 15 minutes until the driver spotted an iguana, which he was very proud of. I didn't have the heart to tell him I'd seen much better iguanas than that just days before.
We arrived at the Everglades Adventure Park (or whatever it was called) at roughly the same time as the entire population of Tokyo. First of all, we saw a show (of sorts) by one of the park ranger guys who spoke about the difference between crocodiles and alligaters demonstrating on the animals themselves. He'd been bitten several times, but stressed how few people ever get hurt by animals. I gave him the example of the time I was pecked by a chicken, but he wasn't impressed.
He also gave an impassioned speech about how important it was to preserve these animals etc. So it was a little surprising to get into the cafeteria and see them serving alligater meat. Oh, and the gift shop had plenty of alligater skin products as well.
Afterwards, we went on an air boat tour (one of those rafts with the big propeller on the back) and conveniently saw no life until we were about 10 metres from the end when there just happened to be 2 alligaters sat there. How convenient.
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David Jenrette
non-member comment
Everglades
The Everglades is a special kind of park and you don't see it by just driving thru at noon -- And I find that the best time is from December to April and the best times of day are just before dawn to about 9AM and then from 5PM to night when animals are active. Also, altho it has birds and animals, it is especially interesting for its plant life: mangrove, sawgrass, bromeliads, etc. And if you have to know which places are most interesting at a particular time. I think you might have enjoyed it more if you had done some reading ahead of time and gotten some good advice as to what to look for. As far as protecting the gators, we have about one gator for every dozen people in Florida -- every lake, stream, or even pond with fish likely has a gator in it (and since they are mostly nocturnal you wouldnt know) so gator on the menu is game management. Next time, try the Glades the first week in March on the Anhinga Trail or down at Mrazek Pond -- you might see things differently then.