#29 – Air boat in the Everglades

We arrived a day early in Orlando for a training course.  So big dilemma… what to do with a free day?  We drove on over to Kissemmee and took a lovely walk along Lakeshore Boulevard on the northern ridge of Lake Tohopekaliga.  From there we headed into Kissemmee… but being pre-midday on a Sunday there wasn’t a whole lot open.  We did find a tea shop though advertising itself as English, and indeed they did have a good selection of English tea bags including Yorkshire Gold and Typhoo.  I was a little amused though when the hot chocolate I requested was served in a teapot!  Just seemed wrong!

Then for the big event!  We drove down the side of the lake to Wild Willy’s Airboat Tours.  My prior knowledge of airboats is all from the TV show of my childhood ‘Gentle Ben’ (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061255/).  So it felt like a fun reminder of childhood times.  The weather wasn’t exactly tropical Florida so once that boat got moving it got even chillier as the wind whipped through us but it was so much fun.  Riding around the lake we got to see snail kites and great blue herons.  I loved seeing the little coots running across the top of the water.  We also saw some highly venomous moccasin snacks which thankfully did not bother to attack us.  The cold weather meant that most of the larger gators were keeping hidden below water where it was warmer but our driver Cap’n Kenny did manage to find us some baby gators in amongst the reeds to admire.  He suggested that we could easily get a larger gator to appear by poking the babies so that they made a noise.  But his description of the size and strength of mama gator led us to the very wise decision to leave well enough alone.

 

 

It was fun seeing all the wildlife of the Florida Everglades but I think the highlight for me was definitely the donuts.  Not the edible variety, but the spinning round and round in the airboat.  So much fun!  So much fun in fact that I asked him to do it again so that I could record it on my camera.  Of course the camera footage is never as good as the real thing, but it is a nice reminder for me of a fun afternoon: 

  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10153820088130585&l=3891048088340520837

All too soon our time came to an end and we had to head back in from the lake.  But there was more fun still to come…