Back to December–Wekiwa Springs

December 2 – 8, 2022                                               Most Recent Posts:
Wekiwa Springs State Park                                        North for the Holiday
Apopka, Florida                                                            Other Damage in Flagler

On December 2nd I moved from Gamble Rogers to Wekiwa Springs State Park.  Having the pull through site at Gamble made it  really nice to be able to hook the car up with the RV in the site. 

At Wekiwa, I don’t have a pull through but I was lucky enough to reserve site 47, a full hook up site in my favorite of the two loops.   With my usual lack of finesse and inability to use side mirrors, I still managed to get the RV into the site and get set up.  Sandy site under Live Oak tree cover.

I developed a routine here that was similar to that at Gamble Rogers.  There is a lovely trail that goes from the campground to the spring.   Maybe 1/2 mile, I don’t really know.  My first morning I walked it over to the spring and took a look around especially at the kayak launch where I hoped to be able to drop of my kayak and leave it for my entire 2 weeks stay.

The boardwalk was known as the “wet to dry” trail.  It led from the spring up to the path through the scrub near the campground.

The launch site is occupied by a concessionaire who rents kayaks and canoes by the hour.  Why they have hundreds of them I don’t know.  Could they really rent that many at one time even in the summer?

Above the spring is the Wekiwa Grille where you can get sandwiches and drinks including alcoholic ones.

I meant to go over and have a bratwurst sandwich and a chocolate milk shake but it didn’t end up happening.

You cannot kayak into the spring area as it is only for swimming which no one was doing on this first morning walk.

I alternated my mornings.  One morning I would hike one of the trails accessible from the campground and the next I would hike to the boat launch and paddle the spring run.

My first hike was to what is known as Lake Prevatt.

One thing I love about state parks is that I do not have to drive anywhere to go hiking.  I just open my door, step outside and follow the trail map.

There are so many marvels on the trails here.  The pine cones from the tall pines are large.

But the flowers near by are tiny.

Notice the web weaver in her web.

From the dry pine woods the trail moves into a moister area as I near the lake.

I find a variety of fungi  making use of the downed trees.  If the second are known as turkey tail then the first must be turkey feet right?

Along the path I had a staring contest for quite some time with this deer.

She turned this way and that but always came back to watching me and my camera until she tired of me and wandered away.

There was a selfie stand in front of Lake Prevatt so I took my picture with the indicated background.

The walkable edge of the lake didn’t extend too far and was quite swampy the further I went.

On my return I spied another spider web.

It almost looks like spun metal.

This is an in/ out trail so I walked back the same way I’d come in and took a picture of one of the three selfie stands along the way.  This one was in the scrub.

Here’s the picture I took from it.

I’ve left the woods, am in the scrub on sandy not dirt paths now.

And then the pavement of the campground.

The next day I took my first kayak trip from the Wekiwa River run up the Rock Spring run.    I was out before anyone else was up other than the deer I encountered on my walk from the campground to the put in.  I love his little antlers

It was a foggy very quiet morning.

The little pied billed grebe was all alone in the fog.  He turned out to be there alone nearly every morning.

The color and markings on the Greene Heron echo that in the water this morning.

I was quite taken with the stillness of the water and the perfect reflections and took several pictures of it along my way.

I was surprised to pass this Limpkin.  He’s not a usual site on this part of the river.

Another bird I saw only this once was the female anhinga.

From a distance she looks like the top of the tree branch.

There is almost always an alligator sunning on my return trip.

I was amazed to get such a good shot of this red bellied woodpecker.  They seldom are still enough.  But when I heard his tapping I stopped the kayak and continued to look until I spotted him.

A beautiful day on the water.

Most of my wildlife pictures are selected from a ridiculous number of the same bird or animal taken as I sit and watch them.   This is my very favorite little blue heron shot.  He’s clearly got a goodie but what a bad hair day.

I not only went kayaking on the spring run in the mornings but some afternoons I went swimming in the spring itself.  Unfortunately there was no way to take a selfie of me actually in the spring swimming. 

Nice spot this fellow had picked to hang his kayak from two trees on the spring edge.

I was just beyond him on the shore with this as my view.  I had my chair, my book and my towel and it was all walking distance from Winnona.  Doesn’t get much better.

Very sweet days at Wekiwa Springs State Park.  If they would just let me stay for a month.