Candid Florida

Observation Tower at Wall Springs Park

Along the Pinellas Trail in Palm Harbor, Wall Springs Park is a perfect escape for folks who like their wilderness tamed and safe. The namesake springs – which do bubble up fresh water within a few hundred feet of a mangrove-lined bayou – were a popular natural swimming hole and spa for more than a century, but like many such places in Florida, fell out of popularity and into disrepair. Pinellas County brought the property back to life with a host of urban amentities, including a paved trail system more than a mile long, a boardwalk for birdwatching along the spring and its outflow basin, several fishing piers on the Gulf of Mexico, a massive playground with a sun canopy, and the one surprising addition that blew me away – the largest open-air observation tower I’ve encountered yet in Florida.  It’s built like a giant Lincoln Log structure of telephone poles, and the multiple decks are big enough to hold an entire classroom of kids. From the top, you get a sweeping view of the Gulf, including distant Anclote Key and Honeymoon Island.  Stop in for your own personal panorama!

Osprey at Honeymoon Island State Park

The busiest beach in Florida has a secret that only birders and hikers know. Get past the beach at Honeymoon Island State Park – and I do mean that literally, just drive into the park and past ALL of the beaches – and you’ll find a quiet corner with a picnic area, playground, and “Nature Trail” sign. This is another of my hikes in “50 Hikes in Central Florida,” where a revisit confirmed that very little has changed along the Osprey and Pelican Trails, save a few changed kiosks and a LOT of new benches. But the highlight of a summer’s afternoon spent in this virgin slash pine forest was seeing not one, not two, but two dozen or more osprey going about their lives. This is a major nesting area for osprey, and the chicks are in the nest. The sounds of the birds, the closeness of the nests, and the constant hum of avian life in the forest – beyond these grand raptors – made it an unforgettable walk.

North Loop boardwalk at John Chesnut Park

Two shores, two parks: Lake Tarpon’s a big place that most visitors don’t even know exists, hidden as it is by businesses and residential areas along US 19 north of Clearwater. On the western shore, in Tarpon Springs, A.L. Anderson County Park is a large county park where you can drop a boat or kayak in to putter around the lake, or enjoy a picnic under the cypresses along the shoreline.

For more extensive recreation opportunities, John Chesnut Sr. County Park in Oldsmar grabs a large chunk of the eastern shoreline and offers it up as a wild place to play. I revisited the park to update “50 Hikes in Central Florida”  to discover efforts in progress to replace all of the boardwalks along the lakeshore. The birding is superb here thanks to a screen of natural floodplain forest along the shoreline.

The Peggy Park Nature Trail is at the south end of the park, offering up a quiet walk under the cypress and a stroll along Brooker Creek. Nearby, boardwalks lead from the boat ramp along the shoreline to hidden niches with picnic tables,  a tall observation tower, and covered decks along the lakeshore, perfect for catching a breeze while reading a book or watching the gallinules in the shallows. Thanks to Barbara Bowen, who met me for this visit, I discovered a whole section of the park I’d missed on my first visit, complete with dog park and large playground, picnic pavillions around a large pond, and another hiking loop with a boardwalk through a floodplain forest where birds are bountiful.

Fishing at E.G. Simmons Park, Ruskin

“There’s a dolphin … right there!” The angler, looking to pick up a fish or two for the evening meal, had been moving from spot to spot around the park as I drove through, enchanted with my new discovery. I found her on an observation deck over a shallow lagoon, watching the surface break as a fin sliced past the mangroves.

Ruskin isn’t a place you’d think of for camping, or so I thought until I discovered E.G. Simmons Park. This was another foray off US 41, watching for those brown signs that signify that something natural is hiding around the bend. I’ve not known the eastern shore of Tampa Bay to be a place for hiking, but it’s a paddler’s delight. Clinging to slender mangrove-lined spits of land that jut out into the wide open of Tampa Bay, this particular county park has two campgrounds where you can launch a kayak right out of the back of your space, plus a beach with lifeguard and pleasant playground with a mini climbing wall. Paved trails link various sections of the park, and the winding road system is perfect for an outing on a bicycle with the tots.

The bluffs of Apollo Beach Nature Preserve

Perched above Tampa Bay on crumbling bluffs, the Apollo Beach Nature Preserve wasn’t quite what I expected. Perhaps the name, with its Greek roots, or the recognition of how Jules Verne predicted Florida space travel, albeit it launched from the shores of Tampa Bay, wrapped an aura of romance around the idea of a nature preserve on this residential shore of the bay. It had rained heavily, so streets and yards were flooded and canals overflowing. Following the signs back from US 41 to the water’s edge, I’d imagined clouds of shorebirds on a sunsplashed beach. But no. Preserving a tiny spit of natural Tampa Bay waterfront in an otherwise terraformed landscape, it’s a picnic park, a place to drop a line between the mangroves in the shadow of a power plant, but certainly not a beach. But I met a family taking their kids exploring in the salt marsh, proving that all it takes is a tiny touch of nature in an otherwise unnatural setting for us to connect with the wild, even in a heavily urbanized area.

Picnic pad at A.L. Anderson Park

Along US 19 in Tarpon Springs, A.L. Anderson is one of those parks that thousands of people whiz by every day and probably never stop to see what it’s all about. I was going to a meeting a couple of miles away and thought hey, why not stop! I’m glad I did. The park hugs the western shore of Lake Tarpon, offering plenty of picnic pavilions for big groups. On a weekday, it was rather quiet, save for the boaters putting in and taking out at the slip. I was delighted to find a marked nature trail that starts at the first pavilion on the left and leads you through a cypress swamp festooned with non-native but cheery philodendron along a boardwalk to the shores of a cove on the lake. I scared up two osprey pretty quick, and saw a young alligator cruising the shallows. The walk continues near the lakeshore, with side trails to private picnic pads amid the cypress, reminiscent of the ones I encountered at John Chesnut Park years ago on the far shore. Grab one for solitude and enjoy your lunch!