Day Trip to Payne's Prairie Preserve
The Summer season in the vacation rental business in Panama City Beach has been crazy busy. Rob and I both work in the business and we have had a lot of stress this summer. Not from the normal stresses of the busy season, but add the new stress of COVID 19 and what all that entails and this Summer has been very stressful. So on our days off we have mostly stayed home and binged way too much TV. So much so that we are sick of TV, and I am a TV nut!
Recently I saw a post on a local photography Facebook page about Payne’s Prairie Preserve. I have heard of it before and had put it on our ‘To go to” list. Seeing the post just prompted me to go ahead and go. Rob was on board so we got up early and headed that way. The Preserve is about 4 hours from home and in and around Gainesville, FL. We took the fast way to get there and headed straight there. We used the Waze app to navigate and it took us to the Northern Entrance. We really didn’t know what to expect and I hadn’t looked at the website for the Preserve so I didn’t know where to go. It turned out that the North Entrance is just a small part of it. When we got there, we paid at the self pay kiosk and got our pass. There was a gate that was open that led to a building that we thought was the visitor center, but it was a classroom or meeting place. A stone building was there too and we thought that maybe it was part of the park too. Again we were wrong, it was another off limits building. We think that this is an education area. I liked the looks of the building so I took a few pictures. There were pretty trees with Spanish moss in the area.
We were not supposed to be here. We took a quick picture and left. The gate was open so we thought this was where we were supposed to park, but nope. When we left this area the gate was now closed, but thankfully it was automated to open as we approached to exit.
We left that area and headed back to where we started and found the start of the walking/hiking trail. We set out to see where it led. The first thing that we saw was an old walk through/under. I think it was from a railroad that ran overhead. The next thing we saw was a barn, it was too dark to take any pictures but it had a lot of information about the animals that were brought over from the Spanish settlers. Right after that the boardwalk started that winds over the wetlands. The trees with all the moss, the greenery, the birds calling….it was beautiful! A great Blue Heron was hiding in plain sight as well as 3 or 4 Limpkins. Limpkins are not as abundant as they once were so when they are sighted it is always a treat. They were there eating the Apple Snails that live in the wetlands. They were calling to each other and seemed to be very comfortable around people. The park wasn’t crowded but there were a few families that were coming and going on the trail.
Limpkin, he was not worried about us at all. They were talking to each other.
These things smelled so good! They have a strong ‘green” or pine smell.
Once the boardwalk ended we stepped down on hard sandy land that was bordered by more wetlands and a small pond. There was a very large gator in the pond. Snail shells were almost like gravel all over the ground. At the end of the trail and all around the wetlands were acres of yellow water lilies. They had a beautiful sweet smell. Actually there were two awesome smells on this trail. At the first part of the trail there were tons of green what I believe are water horse tail weeds that smelled so good and green. At the end were all the incredible water lilies. I wish I could have gotten closer to them to get some good close up pictures.
The Apple Snail shell, this one was about the size of a small apple…..
The is one big gator! There was a couple walking the trail with their little dog, I was glad when they left, he was in danger!
Take a deep breath. These beauties smelled as good as they looked!
Great Blue Heron, he didn’t seem to be too bothered by us being there.
Another Limpkin with the wetlands behind him. My camera needs too be cleaned!!
After we saw all that we could see here at this part of the park we headed out toward the main entrance and visitor center. We got lost. Waze, Google and Apple maps were no help at all. I finally called them to get directions. It was raining pretty hard at this point and thunder and lightening. When we got to the parking area for the visitor center the rain slowed down so we walked to the center and left our cameras in the car. The visitor center was nice and had an observation area that looked out over the “Prairie”. There was a trail from the center to a 3 story observation deck, we went ahead and walked out to it but were bummed to not have our cameras with us. We could see some of the wild “Cracker” horses and not sure but think we saw a couple of bison. They were way out in the distance. We walked back to the car and rode over to the picnic area. We sat in the car and ate lunch (tuna sandwiches). The rain slowed back down and we walked out to a little deck that looked out over the lake. From there you could hear way too much traffic noise. The boat launch was there too.
View from the Visitor Center.
My beautiful Clara, she gets upset if I don’t take at least one picture of her on trips.
After lunch we went back to the visitor center to walk the trail back to the observation deck with camera’s this time. It was still raining so I put my rain jacket over my camera and Rob put his in a plastic bag for protection. The trail was a little longer than the one we took the first time, this time we didn’t go to the visitor canter first. The trail went through the woods and we got to the deck from a different direction. I videoed the walk, it was the best part of the trip for me. Walking in the woods is my therapy, any time I get to feeling blue or too stressed out, I go for a walk in the woods and it puts me right. The rain enhanced the experience. You could hear every drop on the leaves and in the palms. the trail had tons of palm trees, pine trees and oak tress. It was so green and beautiful.
The wild horses way out in the prairie.
Payne’s Prairie from the observation deck.
We arrived back at the deck and took our camera’s out and both of them were so fogged up that we couldn’t get any good pictures with them. So overall this was not a photo journey, but it was a nice day away from home and from out in front of the TV! We left the Preserve and decided to take the scenic drive home. We went toward Perry, FL. We saw a sign to Fanning Springs State Park and decided to go check it out. It would have been a great place to go if we wanted to swim in the springs, but that is really all that is there. So we walked out and looked around the Springs and left. Next stop was Big Bend National Wildlife management area, the Hickory Mound Impoundment. We took a dirt road that was “private property” that took us to the NWM area. It was about 7 or so miles to the salt mashes and it was beautiful! There was another observation deck to walk up to view out over the marsh. We got out of the car and both of us were hit in the face by bugs! We hurried up the deck took a few shots and a look around and hurried back to the car to escape the bugs!
Fanning Springs
Hickory Mounds Impoundment of the Big Bend Wildlife Management Area.
I was a little nervous driving over that!
The bugs here were viscous!
Close tot eh end of the road. We saw a large wild boar just after this, but it was too dark to get a picture.
The road continued and we came out on 98 heading toward St Marks NWR, one of our favorite places in Florida. It was dark at this point so we just kept going toward home. There were a couple more dirt roads that we plan on going back to explore one day soon.
