Today we travelled to Florida City and Key Largo.
We slept in, relaxed and had breakfast until the maid was standing at the door at 11 am gesturing us out the door so she could clean the room.
And in fact, we only made it about 3 miles down the road to Florida City.
It was one of those “take it easy” kind of days.
We found Biscayne National Park between the two cities and had a lovely walk along the shore.
It was Sunday and there were lots of family’s having picnics and fishing.
It appears that everyone had a fishing rod and was enjoying the day which was 27 degrees, cloudy with the occasional shower.
They were fishing for Striped Mullet and Mangrove (Gray) Snapper but we only saw them catch ones that were only a few inches long.
There were schools of small fish and you could see crabs scurrying along the edge of the water.
The paths were all made up of coral and you walked through mangrove forests.
The mangroves are protected here and there is a large fine if you harm them. They keep the land stable and the water at bay.
Walking along a boardwalk I saw a brown pelican in the water. Pelicans here are like seagulls at home and you will see a lot of pictures of them on this journey.
But as I was taking a picture I noticed that he had some fishing line around his beak.
This seems to be quite common where humans, birds and animals intertwine I’m sorry to say.
On our last trip, it was a loon with a fishing line in its beak.
Going up to the information centre they had a “touch these” spot where there were all sorts of skeletons and things from the ocean including some turtles.
Here’s Rob holding a green turtle that he took outside to get a photo with.
They also had a great exhibit of all creatures great and small that inhabit the ocean around the area so we obtained a lot of local knowledge.
As we left there was a Great egret by the side of the road fishing and didn’t mind its picture being taken.
I plugged in “Walmart” into the GPS as what we were looking for was an ice chest to keep things cool and we went round and round until we finally made our way back to where we started (the Great egret) and decided to go and find a hotel.
Getting back to Hwy #1 and heading south there was a Walmart about 2 blocks down the road.
GPS’s don’t always take you the easy route we’ve found.
After checking out a few hotels we found a fairly nice one and booked in around 3:30 pm but the room was just being cleaned so we decide to go check out Key Largo which is about 20 minutes down the road.
We had heard that once you hit the Keys the hotel rooms got more expensive so we stopped at one to see what the price difference was.
The price for the night was $269 but for Rob they would give it to him for $199. 🙂
The price for the hotels we are staying at for the night was only $87 and they didn’t look much different except for the one in Key Largo had a hammerhead shark.
We found a wonderful restaurant to have dinner called The Fish House.
Fresh fish bought whole from local fishermen every day and even though it was early the place was packed.
I had a fish called Cobia and Rob had some deep-fried oysters.
The cobia was absolutely delicious and between us both, we finished it off and licked the plate clean.
We didn’t have room for key lime pie so we took a piece to go for later.
Florida is the only place to buy key lime pie in my opinion. They just make the best.
Spent the rest of the evening relaxing, watching TV and typing up our travels to keep you up-to-date.
The plan is to get up early tomorrow and head for the keys.
