New Year in the River of Grass Part I

For the 2009 - 2010 new year, we headed off to the bottom of the continental U.S. to visit the Everglades National Park. On our

way down, we stopped at Myakka River State park, where the Florida ecology was already in evidence. Here we spotted alligators and egrets, before we headed of along one of the trails that cuts through the live oak and saw palmetto-ed terrain, which was alive with lizards. After walking through the forest, we got above it by visiting the park's canopy walkway. Because Florida is so flat, views like this don't come often. The 25 foot elevation walkway lets you walk among the spanish moss covered branches, while the 100 foot tower situated on one end gives you a sense of the landscape as a whole.

After grabbing some frozen custard at a ice cream cone shaped Twistee Treat, we found an empty beach to wander along and ring in the new year, and came across an abandoned wood carved duck bottle opener, which might have come in with the tide, we couldn't decide. The next day, we rambled on to Big Cypress National Preserve, and a walk on the Gator Hook trail. The trail was a bit rough and weedy, but we hadn't gone far before we spotted what we thought was a bittern in a marshy patch, but when I looked over pictures later, I decided it was really a juvenile green heron, which looks similar in the face and neck, but doesn't have the right body feather pattern.

After our short hike, we headed over to the Oasis visitor's center, which has a boardwalk overlooking the ditch that was dug to build up the road. Such ditches follow alongside many of the roads in this region, and are filled with water and alligators. Here, we had the normal compliment of egrets and herons, plus a few anhinga hunting in the water. The anhinga is probably one of my favorite Florida birds, because it is so fun to watch swim under water in their hunt to spear fish with their beaks. Of course, there are a lot of interesting and beautiful birds in Florida, so it is hard to choose only one.

Just a short drive up the road brought us to the Everglade's Shark Valley Visitor's Center. Here we were filled with wonder as tourists ambled along a paved walkway which was paralleled by an alligator filled waterway. Several of the alligators were sprawled right along the very edge of the asphalt. I was surprised at the total lack of concern most of the tourists showed the nearby predators. I watched as a handful of children tossed small pieces of wood onto the back of one gator, standing not more that 6 feet from it. Maybe they don't think they are real. But they are. As we walked along, we saw turtles surfacing for air, one of them bearing the marks of it's predatory neighbors. All sorts of birds perched hear and there. There was a snake sunning itself in a flattened patch of grass that was an alligator's preferred spot, and we even found a huddled, squeaking pile of baby alligators. Along the way, we ventured down the Otter Cave Hammock trail, which leads through the hammock along a limestone path, where the rock has had small tunnels eroded through it.

Shark Valley is at the top of the park. We now headed to the bottom. We arrived at Flamingo just as a storm began to roll in. We took an uneventful stroll around Eco Pond, and headed for the visitor's center just as the rain began to fall. We looked at the somewhat meager exhibits until the rain passed, then wandered over by the Marina, where we heard we might see an American Crocodile. And when we looked down among the slips, we did spot a crocodile, who rather than floating passively like the alligators, turned about in the water to watch us with interest.

then it was back along the road to Snake Bight trail. No, that's not a typo, this straight trail through a tunnel of trees leads to a bight, a sort of bay on a bay. But it was growing dark quickly at this point, so we didn't make it all the way to the end before turning back that night. When we returned in the morning,we were greeted by a small flock of ibis and spoonbills feeding in the mud and shallow water. After a quick stop to investigate a Mahogany hammock, which is basically an island of trees in the sea of grass, we headed on to the gumbo limbo and anhinga trails at Royal Palm.

Mt. Bruce and Te Papa

When we arrived Mt. Bruce National Wildlife Centre in the morning, a light rain was falling. We pulled on some rain jackets and pressed on. Just out the back doors of the visitor's center is the enclosure for the Takahe. These colorful, turkey sized birds were long thought extinct until 1948. They look like corpulent relatives of New Zealands far more common Pukekos. Unfortunately, we could barely glimps him among the grass and bushes where he was hiding.
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We then turned into the dark kiwi house, for another look at the adept foragers, with a comical wobbling gait. Outside the Kiwi house, they also have tuatara. Throughout the park, the birds are kept in open air enclosures, set within the forest edge, so that wild birds, like the native pigeon mingle closely with the captive ones. Among the several bird species that they have here, one of my favorites was the kokako. This gray bird has blue wattles and a black eye mask, and a peculiar song.

We left Mount Bruce and headed south for Wellington, and the Te Papa Museum. Te Papa contains a wide variety of exhibits, but the main attractants for us where the natural history exhibits and Maori art and culture exhibits.

The Maori artwork and architecture is focused on elaborate carving. Their homes and meetinghouses are spectacular. They also make a wide variety of objects from the plentiful jade on the island. The natural history museum covers the animals that are part of New Zealand's ecology, both on land and in the sea. They even have a life size replicas of the extinct moa and a great blue whale's heart. Beyond this, the museum has a myriad of exhibits, from an earthquake house to an area on immigrants, and even a statue of bull made of corned beef tins.

Falls on ice

It is not too terribly common in Middle Tennessee for cold spells to last very long. For the temperatures to remain, not only below freezing, but in the 10's and 20's for several continuous weeks is nearly unheard of. I knew by the ice flows that formed and persisted along all the rock cuts along the interstate on my daily commute that my favorite waterfalls were freezing.

When a Saturday arrived, with a dusting of snow the night before, we bundled into warm layers for the day's 19 degree high, donned hiking boots to manage the ice and climbed into the car. Some of Tennessee's best waterfalls are located in Fall Creek Falls State Park. Just behind the visitors center lies the Cascades.When we climbed down the last few steps to the rock slab which, in summer months is a jumping of point for swimmers, we were rewarded with the site of an icy wonderland. The water had frozen into a milky white flow stone, with a steady stream of water still passing down over the rocks, and continuing down stream for the trip over Cane Creek Falls.

We quickly headed to the overlook for Cane Creek Falls. We Grinned like giddy children from ear to ear to look down on this 85 foot drop and it's plunge pool. The very large pool was completely covered over in a solid and smooth layer of ice, iced with the recent snow. There is a quick but not easy trail to the base of the falls, know affectionately as the "cable trail" due to the steel cable which helps the adventurous down to the bottom. We made our way carefully down, minding the ice that covered the rocks in places, me fascinated by my freezing gloves sticking to the steel cable, which robbed me of bits of material with every fresh handhold. At the bottom, we were greeted by an amazing overhang of blue and white ice at the fall's edge. The wall behind the falls feathered with icicles. Some tree branches overhanging the falls were encrusted with ice as well, an effect of the freezing mist given off by the still flowing water. It was everything we hoped for, and who knows if the weather will grace us with such amazing sites again this year. There is another small waterfall, which flows in just to the left of Cane Creek Falls, where the water lands and splashed on rocks, rather than into the plunge pool. With the freezing weather, this had formed a giant mound of ice, easily six feet tall, and ten feet in diameter. This was a totally unexpected formation, and if not for the water actively splashing down over it, and the long daggers of ice hanging above, I would very much have climbed all over it.

A quick drive or a pleasant hike away was the main event, Fall Creek Falls itself. Reputedly the highest waterfall east of the Mississippi, the Fall's falling water, feathered by the air in its long fall had sprayed the canyon walls, trees and rocks at its base with a halo of white, contrasting sharply with the dark water directly under the falls, where the water moved to quickly to freeze.
We hurried down the trail from the overlook to the base of the falls, anticipating wonder. As we rounded the last curve and pushed aside a ice encrusted branch, we entered the halo ring, delighted to find that the artificial snow being generated by the fall's mist had layered a foot deep, with a hard crusted surface we could walk on. Fall Creek Falls also has a companion falls, and as with Cane Creek, this one had formed a large stalagmite of ice. The falling misty ice had also clung to every plant within the ring, turning twigs into snowy branches, and reeds into thick white fun noodles, protruding from the snowy earth like some strange white play-doh hair.