Tuesday, June 24, 2008

"The Everglades National Park - Part 1"

During my first visit to Florida back in 2006, I was so concentrated on the 'touristy' places like Disney, Universal, NASA, you know, those places... There was one particular place that I would have loved to have gone if I had an extra weekend: The Everglades National Park!

Yup, nature lover ;)

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Driving there from hotel takes 2.5 hours. The Everglades is the entire green area of the map. It is a system of slow moving rivers in a subtropical wilderness or "marshland".

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Driving past cow farms :D
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I don't mind driving when the scenery is this beautiful... miles and miles of clear sky!
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Aha... almost there... see the sign NO FUEL AVAILABLE, lucky us, we have full tank :P

Before long, we reached the Main Visitor Entrance, listen to some videos...
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Everglades is a World Heritage Site...
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And a statue of the endangered Florida Panther! There's less than 100 of them in the wild, so tough luck trying to find one!

The park has a few stops which we can park our cars and hike a trail. The most famous of all is the Anhinga Trail, right at the entrance, which is a superb place to view wildlife!

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Another endangered species ;)

Before we even start, holee crap!!!
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There's an Alligator in the pond!!
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"Humans... eww.."

Wow! That was the first look at these alligators which populate the Everglades! And we haven't even started the trail yet! Nice...

Ok, start walking, it's damn hot day....
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going through the Everglades on a boardwalk... safe ;)
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The River of Grass, the nickname of the Everglades... don't be fooled! Although it looks dry, at the bottom are swamps!

After awhile, we reached the main viewing area...
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a lake..... :)
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Pretty girls....
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Wow..... nice view.

Oh-oh... sorry sorry, side-tracked a bit! :P

Here are some pics...
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Nice tree, like some vegetable...
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In perfect harmony... the wading bird, Anhinga (top right) and see who's at the bottom left... an alligator's head! That's how they like to appear... just the tip of their head submerged....

Umm.... what am I taking...?
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Heheh, look carefully.... that's no wood! It's a Gator!

Can you spot them all?? :D
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Two tortoise....
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and a gator! Food......:P
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"Dumb humans...."

National Geography LIVE! :D

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Gator hidden in the mud....

At some point, the boardwalk ends, leaving us back on the road.... and man... THERE'S NO FENCE IN BETWEEN. The gator can just choose to come up and .... *gulp* Nah, dun worry, humans are not part of their food chain! (looks around nervously)

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A tortoise!

Ok, the Anhinga trail ends... Next is Gumbo Limbo trail...
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Sorry la, I'm not crazy enough to go IN there! Later end up as gator food! :-S Fren2 was sick enough to make a joke when we heard some sound coming from the bushes. "Gator, gator!" In the end, both of us got paranoid and went back to the car! :-S

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A signboard.... what a superb shot of a panther in the swamp....

Next: Continuing deeper into Everglades!

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