This trail is still one of our favorites; we’ve hiked here at least three or four times now. The last time we were here was back in October when the river levels were way up (see: Hiking along a flooded Econolockhatchee), and before that was a trip where I also explored the white loop (see: Hiking Seven Bridges Trail) and the main trail on the same trip.
Like most of the trips that we’ve made along the river, we saw alligators along the way. One alligator we didn’t even notice until I came home and looked more closely at the photo. He’s in the photo to the right – right in the middle. You have to look closely
I zoomed in more closely in this photo – you can see his eye’s sticking up out of the water right by the sand bank.
Along the way, we also saw a lot of Golden Orb Weavers (or Banana Spiders). If you let the sun catch their web just right, you’ll see that the web is yellow. This is one of the more interesting spiders – their webs are strong enough to use for fishing line (an old boy scout trick). The spiders will also put leaves in their web (supposedly to keep birds from flying into their webs and destroying them). They are big enough to catch mammals too – Tina and I saw one web where the spider caught and killed a bat.
Our plan for today’s trip was a short hike out to the bridge for a picnic lunch – it really is a nice spot to sit on the bench and enjoy the quiet.
On the way back, we paused at one of the interesting landmarks along the trail. There are four palm trees that have grown almost horizontally to form a square area that looks like it was designed by nature to support a platform. It’s a neat spot for a photo that shouldn’t be missed.
If you would like to see the technical details of this trip, download a gpx file, or just see where these photos were taken, click on the “Trip details” link at the bottom of the map. Also – don’t forget to look at the two previous posts that I linked to above – they show a lot of other photos, including the major landmarks along the way.
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