This morning I got chatting to a couple from New York State, who have had the opposite lives to me, having been married and had their first child right after graduating high school, have grandkids nearly as old as me and they still haven’t retired! We swapped travel stories and in the end, they gave me their contact details so that I could stay with them just twenty minutes outside the Big Apple.
Just as I was finishing turning the front passenger seat around, Tuuli showed up, excited for our day of adventure. We stashed her mountain bike on my bed and were on our way, back to the Everglades. We didn’t go too far inside the park this time, only to Long Pine Key to do an eight mile trail there. Wheels were rolling around 11am and it was definitely warming up. The trail was fire road through swampy bush and we came across a few walkers that we felt sorry for. When we came upon three horses, I stopped and got off my bike straightaway and instructed Tuuli to do the same. Their riders were grateful and gingerly coaxed their horses past us, they were clearly freaked out from a couple of alloy frames with some wheels.
At the end of the trail was a lake, blue as blue and abundant with fish. We hung out at the bank for a while, then rode around the pond only coming across one other person who was fishing and having some success. We head back the way we’d come, all the while swapping stories of the people we know back home and the different adventures we did, some of which overlapped. We came across the horses again and even though it was their second interaction with us, they still weren’t happy but we didn’t get kicked so I consider that a win.
Back at the car, there was a family with a huge spread of lunch that made my mouth water. I was starving, but instead of making lunch, Tuuli knew a good restaurant at the top of the Keys so we had snacks and held out. I was getting quite good at arranging the bike and the surfboard onto the roof, which very much impressed the picnickers.
Covered in sweat, we drove out of the park and south towards the Keys (a series of islands that extend the southern coast of Florida with huge bridges to connect them). We tried in vain to find a Tiki hut underneath a bridge on Key Largo that Tuuli had been to before, but it was closed (at Saturday lunch time?!?!) so we moved on and found a place called the Buzzard’s Roost right by a marina. We nabbed a table by the water, watching the boats come and go amongst the pelicans and endured poor service to have two rounds of Ceviché, a Peruvian dish that is very popular in Florida for it’s refreshing nature. It was yummy salad of raw fish, onions, tomatoes, capsicum and a dressing with a few tortilla chips to shovel it in. According to Tuuli, this was one of the best Ceviché she’d ever had.
We drove on towards John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park where we intended to rent SUP (Stand Up Paddle) boards and do some snorkelling. We drove in after 3pm and after paying our entry fee, found out that rentals were no longer offered this late in the day. We pulled over out of the way of traffic to decide our next move and figured we would come back tomorrow so we’d have a full day of boarding. I went back to the entry booth to get a refund and it took at least ten minutes because of a completely unnecessary process that required me to sign something, honestly what a joke. These people need a lesson in efficiency.
We moved on to the hotel on Islamorada called the Creekside Inn. Tuuli lost a lot of points for navigation, we must have done a u-turn for every destination we came to thanks to the dodgy Google maps on her phone. This time we’d drive a few miles past the hotel, but no matter, we eventually made it. We checked in and got a recommendation to visit Anne’s beach just down the isle. The room was luxurious by my standards, not a bad camp, especially considering the prospect of a long shower.
Back in the car, we drove south for twenty minutes and found Anne’s beach (after another u-turn). It was one of only a few public beaches along the Keys, most sandy patches belonging to the rich and famous or state parks. We waded in the shallows of the ocean around mangroves to explore all of the tiny beaches, it wasn’t a white sandy deal, but quite a few people had made a day of the beach and set up on what patches of sand they could find. During our wading a girl nearby screamed and splashed around because she had seen a weird fish that was crawling along the sand with a baby on its back. We saw it too and had no idea what to make of it. A man up a tree asked us what beaches we found and I described the size of them with my arms outstretched. He offered us a beer, but we politely declined wanting to continue our explore and he was probably offering Bud light or something similarly disgusting.
We crossed the road to the west side of the isle (the land mass at Anne’s was only about forty meters across) and walked along the footpath until we came to a fishing spot right by an old-style bridge that connects Islamorada with Lower Matecumbe Key. As soon as we arrived, a fisherman made a catch, which I took full credit for. He threw it back because it was too small. His luck continued, he must have reeled in another five fish in the space of twenty minutes, all of them beautiful and shining in the sun and swimming like drunkards after being tossed back into the sea. We sat on the sea wall and watched the fishing action as the sun started setting below the horizon.
Soon, the fishing action faded to nothing and another group joined us on the wall. I took their photo since they looked so photographic – a group of mates sitting on the sea wall, beers in hand, bright sun lighting up their skin. They were thankful and not long after a few of them started jumping off the bridge for fun. Tuuli and I still found things to talk about as we watched the sun turn orange and dip below the horizon. We must have sat there for nearly two hours and it was blissful.
More driving, we went back to the hotel for a quick shower to get the day’s sweat off, then a short drive to dinner, another find by Tuuli. I got to keep my promise to Jon by having a Mojito by the water which was refreshing. We sat at the bar for a few minutes then were awarded a table outside under the stars. I went El Cheapo for dinner having a chicken burger while Tuuli had a tuna salad, which I finished off when I was full. We talked a lot about our Brisbane lives now and both of us ended up feeling very homesick.
After I tried the famous Key Lime Pie (which was too tart for my liking, but still good), we drove back to the hotel and were in bed by 10pm.