Exploring The Forgotten Coast
Finally a Saturday off with Rob! We are now on the off season schedule and for the first time in years Rob and I have the weekends off together. Saturday, September 26th was National Public Lands Day and the weather was perfect so we decided to head over to St Marks National Wildlife Refuge. This is not the first time I have written about this beautiful place and I am sure it won’t be the last.
First stop was Dan D Donuts for a couple of sweets for the ride. We have been watching a lot of You Tube videos from travelers lately and on one this week they stopped for cake donuts and I have been craving them every since! Unfortunately they were almost out (at 9am!) but they had 2 glazed and 3 Sour cream and they were very good! Not exactly what I wanted but they hit the spot.
Once we got to the refuge it was about 1:00 Eastern time and we drove slowly to the end of lighthouse road. The sky was beautiful but there wasn’t a lot of birds out and it was pretty warm. We took the jeep for this outing with the top back and it got pretty hot. We did see a few gators, bald eagles and some white Ibis. The butterflies were very active and we stopped to take a few pictures. We saw 1 monarch, several Gulf Fritillary a few buckeyes and lots of moths. There were 3 Zebra longwings and a few Tiger Swallowtails, but we couldn’t get any pictures of them. We decided to go grab a snack at the closest store and drive further east to find more public land roads to explore. They had boiled peanuts at the store and they were a good roadtrip snack.
We headed east out of the refuge and found a new road to drive down and explore. It was pretty but not much to see so we got back on the main road (hwy 98) and went farther east, we realized that we needed to get gas so we stopped and filled up. The next road was Goose Pasture Rd that went back into the Aucilla Wildlife management area. It was a beautiful drive with lots of palms and pine trees. We came to a pretty pond area and stopped for a look around. The water was clear but dark and you could tell it was DEEP! The trees were starting to show some Fall color and they reflected so beautifully in the pond.
We left this area and went back to our west where we found another dirt road to take back into the Aucilla/Wacissa Conservation area. This time there were lots of turn offs and roads. We took several and each one was beautiful. There were less pines and more hard woods in this area. One of the roads dead ended into a beautiful body of water with lots of cypress trees. I teared up at the beauty. It literally took my breath away. The road went right into the water, like a boat ramp. It had been all sand and dirt up to this point but this part of the road was gravel. I wish we had our kayaks or canoe with us. I do think that we will venture over this way again soon with kayaks in tow. There were so many cypress trees and green grass , we couldn’t get a good angle to capture the beauty of this place in pictures but I did my best with what we had to work with. The water was so still and the sun in a perfect spot to see the reflections, you could t tell where the trees ended and the water began. But trust me it was truly beautiful and peaceful, a real Florida oasis.
Once we left this area it was getting close to sunset so we decided to go back to St Marks NWR to see if any more birds or wildlife would be out and to watch the sunset over the Gulf at the end of Light House Road. It was a great decision, not for wildlife but the sunset was beautiful!
Days like yesterday are why I love living in Florida. This is what I love about the state. The beach is beautiful but there is so much more to Florida. The Real Florida is so diverse in what she has to offer. If you are ever looking for a little more to see and do in this amazing state, just head out to the big bend area or over in Wakulla County and get off the main roads and explore.
