While Visiting Florida, we wanted to see some of the local sights. Deb and I thought about doing a swamp boat tour. The reality is after being in Louisiana we have seen quite a few of these types of tours. The ones on the airboats are relatively expensive, and if you have done it once, they are not all that different from one another. Both of our Grandsquids don’t care for loud noise. Combine that with not being able to “talk” to each other on tour, we decided against it.
What we did however find was an “eco-tour” in the Florida wetlands. We found a place called Babcock Ranch. This is a huge working ranch with an exciting history. You can read more about the history on their website. For us, this was a nice little break from the water-based activities of our trip.
You get to the ranch and board a converted school bus. It has a camouflage paint scheme and no windows in it so you can see out very well. The bus goes through the different sections of the ranch ranging from fields and plains to wetlands and swamps. In the rainy season, the coach goes through foot deep water in a lot of areas.
This leads to a very cool feeling of being “in the swamp.” If you go in the early spring and late winter however before the rain starts, these roads will all be dry.
We got to see all kinds of wildlife from plain and field animals like the cattle and longhorns. These guys had huge horns and given their height; they are close to the windows. As long as you keep yourself inside the vehicle as the rules state, you can get a great close view without fear of getting poked. Seriously though, you can get very close and the driver tosses feed and grain out to get the animals to come very close to the vehicle.
We also saw regular cattle. Remember this is a working ranch. The funny thing is that Swab still remembers how my mother calls her cows when she is getting ready to feed them. My mom will come out of her house and with “cow cookies” in a bucket she will yell “Come-aaaa, Come-aaa, Come-aaa.” This is just a variation of the word come, and the cows do respond. The funny thing is that Swab hasn’t heard this since she was 2 and it must have stuck in her head. We can’t pass cows without her yelling Come-aaa, Come-aaa.
As the tour goes from the plains down into the wetlands, the scenery changes. The ponds start to appear, and there are all kinds of turtles, frogs, and birds of all types. The giant crane, egrets, and water all sorts of birds wade in the water looking for their next meal. This guy was standing in 6″ of water pecking tadpoles or minnows out of the water.
There are a couple of small bridges that the bus goes over and it is a very odd feeling. The bridge is narrow enough that you can’t see it unless you lean out the window and look down. This gives you the illusion of floating over the water. Each of the more extensive ponds or bodies of water that we went by, had a bunch of alligators in them. I was so amazed at one of these watering holes I forgot to take a picture, but there had to have been 25-30 gators in a small area.
At one point during the tour, we were in a dry area, and there was a large 10 foot or so alligator walking through the woods. I have seen alligators a lot living where we do, but this was different. It is rare that you see one walking on land, not near a body of water. They are very prehistoric looking. The movement, motion, and meatiness of that thing were wild looking. Even the driver stopped and commented that it is something very rare to see. He wondered what the gator was doing this far from the water.
All in all, this is a great tour, and if you are going to be in the area, I would recommend it. There are other things to do at the ranch with a little shop, a place to eat as the tour ends and a very small museum. Don’t think of big town museum, think of a single garage size room with artifacts of logging, sap mining and the swamps.