Florida Adventures with John & Lois Week 3
Silver River State Park 3/28 – 4/4
On Sunday March 28 we drove 70 miles from Citrus Springs to Silver River State Park outside of Ocala. This move brought us closer to the Silver River, Juniper Springs, Ocklawaha River and DeLeon Springs. Pat Power, Jocelyn’s sister-in-law, and a TAPC member from Grand Rapids, joined us for a part of this week. The cabins at Florida State Parks are really modern 1,000 square foot, homes with two bedrooms, and large screened porches. They are very popular and must be reserved almost a year in advance if you want a weekend.
Paddling the Silver River requires you to paddle upstream against a moderate current for two or three hours if you want to see the springs that form this clear river. Along the way we saw many birds and alligators, as well as wild monkeys that escaped from captivity forty years ago. They live in the trees along the river and are thriving.
Juniper Springs is almost magical because at the start, the creek is only about 8 feet wide, the bottom is white sand, the water is crystal clear, and the creek has a canopy of palms. The only thing spoiling our trip this time were crowds. Every year this creek seems to attract more and more people, and the outfitter at the park rents only aluminum canoes. People have difficulty paddling these canoes down this narrow twisty river, so there is constant banging as they bump into each other and the banks. Next time we go, we will either start very early or late to avoid the crowds.
On Wednesday Lois and I drove 45 minutes north to the town of Hawthorne and rode the Gainesville – Hawthorne bike trail into Gainesville for lunch. Since this trail runs straight east and west and goes through forest preserves, it is almost always shady. Even though the trail is a converted railroad bed, it had hills and turns which really made it fun. We ate in downtown Gainesville at a deli that featured free gelato for dessert! Bike rides don’t get much better than that.
Thursday we paddled the Ocklawaha which is a blackwater river, and that creates great reflections. Unfortunately, the water was very high so we didn’t see as many wading birds as we had seen on previous trips.
Friday we headed over to DeLeon Springs State Park to paddle the waters surrounding the springs. The area is famous for its bird life. They claim every variety of wading bird that lives in Florida is in this park. Since I am not an expert birder, I can’t verify their claim, but I can say that we saw more birds there than on any other day on our trip. The osprey put on quite a display, hovering high above the lake and then diving into the water at high speed, and carrying away their fish head-first.
On Saturday we paddled another section of the Ocklawaha with Ginger Privat, a former colleague of Lois’. Even though it was a beautiful Saturday, we saw few other people on the river except at the accesses.
