Wakulla Springs

On Sunday we finished up our panhandle trip with a stop at Wakulla Springs State Park. This place was beeeeautiful. The actual 'spring' was a little developed; it's quite large and they've set it up as a really nice place to swim complete with diving platforms. We didn't swim, but I'm sure in the hot summer months that 68 degree water feels great.


The park offers glass-bottom boat rides, but since we've already seen and snorkeled in other springs, we decided to spend our time instead doing the river boat tour, which ended up being a good choice. Typically, a spring is the headwaters to a river of some sort, and this one was no exception. Apparently since they've been doing these boat tours for 40+ years, the animals don't fear the boats anymore but are still 'wild'. However, our guide informed us that when rangers try to take a canoe or kayak down the river to do annual 'inventories', birds and reptiles alike run and hide from the unfamiliar vessels.


Crystal clear water is typical of spring-fed tributaries.


Lots of bald cypress trees.


Spider lilies.


One of many gators that we saw.


There are several nesting ospreys along the river.



We got to see a couple yellow-crowed night herons. These are beautiful birds that are somewhat uncommon to see, according to our guide.



A male anhinga in its breeding plummage.



Great blue heron.


Egret. I love egrets :)


Taking a little walk through the woods. As you can sort of see in this picture, when riding in the backpack Lydia likes to stand on the support bars and stand up. Sometimes this leads to jumping up and down, which makes walking interesting for me. It's a good core workout, anyway :)

It was a great visit and fun to explore more parts of this state!