Nature Hikes and Moving South

Wednesday and Thursday, May 15 and 16, 2013--Brooksville to Ft. Myers

There are lots of places for hiking in Florida.  Today, we headed to the Chinsegut Wilderness Area north of where we are staying.  We stopped first to hike the Big Pine Tract.  It has a large stand of old-growth pines (200 years old).  We took a loop hike and a side hike through the woods along an old state highway.  From there, we headed to the Nature Center Tract of the same wilderness area and took a long wooded loop trail and a cut-across trail that took us through a wetlands area.  Both were nice walks with lots of nice songbird sounds, views of wildlife (turtle, deer, butterflies, etc.), and a quietness that is hard to find today.  Toward the end, we just sat on a bench for a while enjoying the fresh air and the quiet.  I'm not sure how far we walked, but it took us about 3 hours at a regular pace (which is rather fast for most people).

Returning to the hotel, we explored the town of Nobleton located on the Withlacooche River.  It's a small town, but it's a good place for river recreation.  There were lots of canoes and kayaks for rent, but today only one person seemed to be on the river.  Several people, however, were at the outdoor tables at River Ratz.
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Thursday became a long driving day.  We started it, however, with a stop for hiking at the Withlachooche River Wilderness Park and at the nearby Green Swamp Preserve.  Both are just outside of Dade City which was 20 miles south of where we have been staying.  We hiked loop trails, sat at the river, watched canoeists preparing their boat for the river, etc.  It's a beautiful area with nice woods, green open areas, a cypress-lined river, etc.

Most of the rest of the daytime was spent driving to Ft. Myers at the bottom of the area where we will be visiting on this trip.  We wanted to go there and use our final 10 days to move upward towards Tampa for our return.  To get to Ft. Myers, we drove through the central part of the state--an area with lots of orange orchards.  Many of the orchards were harvesting oranges, and we saw large truckloads of them being taken to market.

In the early evening, we went to downtown Ft. Myers to explore it.  It's a very nice downtown that seems occupied and alive.  Part of that is due to the fact that almost every building has had its floors above street level developed into apartments.  However, their plan seems to have been to make EVERY building look as if its top floors are apartments even if they aren't yet; they've done this by putting interior window coverings on each window to make it look occupied.  Downtown attracts both those who are residents there and those who are drawn there from other parts of town, too.  The streets are lined with sidewalk restaurants, small shops, and offices.  It's a clean and attractive city.  We walked up and down the streets and over to the riverfront which has views of bridges to Cape Coral and of the sunset to the west.