HOMOSASSA SPRINGS

Last Sunday I told Duane we needed to take a ride somewhere.  He bundled me on the bike for a surprise destination.  I was very pleasantly surprised to end up here.

 

 

 

This is one of Florida's many springs tourist spots, but this one was very entertaining. There are two ways to enter the park.  The east entrance is right at the park itself.  The west entrance has a nice visitors' center where we caught a slow boat up the creek to the main park.  There is also tram service along this route, but the boat ride is by far the best way to enter the park.  Along the way we enjoyed viewing the native wildlife and learning about the park we were about to visit.  Seems it was originally a privately owned exotic animal park.  The creek flows around an island (on the left here) where the monkeys lived.  When the boats floated under any low-hanging branch, the monkeys would jump down, swipe anything shiny and scramble back up and out of reach.  At the end of the day, the keepers had to go out to the island and retrieve the loot and try to get it back to its owners.   When the state took over, all the exotic animals were quartered elsewhere and  the flora and fauna populations returned to only native species.

                                    

Lots of turtles out sunning.

Blue heron

The Park reintroduced wood ducks by installing nesting boxes.

Homosassa Spring's main draw are the manatees.  During the winter, manatees swim up the rivers that come from springs and empty into the ocean.  Homosassa is one of those springs.  Manatees need warm water and seek the 72df water when the ocean temps reach below that.  The Park has four manatees in their care which have some kind of injury.  While they are recuperating, they are penned in the park. When the ocean water temp gets too cold, the park manatees are kept in an enclosed pool while the open gate allows other manatees to access the warm spring waters.

We were too late to view them in the underwater viewing room, but we saw them swimming .  They look like mini submarines.

The viewing station is built on two tiers inside the bowl of the spring.  This spring is much smaller than Wicki Watchee.  This one is only 35 feet deep and slightly bigger around than the upper floor of the viewing station.

Down the stairs you can see  in a 360d view. This is one of a large school of snook that were visiting from the ocean, 9 miles from the spring down the Homosassa River.  The name means river where the little pepper grows.

View from above.

Inside the alligator enclosure.  Duh!

The enclosures were encircled by walkways set about 5 feet above them.  The only exotic not sent somewhere else is Lu, the Nile hippo.  No one wanted to feed a 6000 lb hippo, so Lu was officially made a Florida citizen and still lives in his home of almost 50 yrs.

Lu getting his afternoon snack of bananas and watermelon.

The river flows through several different enclosures.  Here the river otters--fun to watch.

This island was filled with different kinds of water birds including swans, pellicans, ibis's etc.  These pink flamingos are for Sherry Wysong and her fellow flamingo lovers.

                                     

Along the outside of the walkway were fenced in enclosures.  These are roseate spoonbills.

Pelican nesting site in the river.

Yes, bald eagles are native to Florida.

We spent the day walking around the the park, took a break for a very reasonable lunch at their cafe, listening to the talks about the residents.  We opted to take the boat back and were rewarded with this view of the inhabited osprey nest.  We were on the wrong side of the boat on the way in but could see it really well on the way back.

Just down the road from the park is the town of Homosassas and the H-D store.  We don't buy anything at these stores, just take a pic and browse.  They are mostly the same, but have different designs for their store's tees.

After our day of touring we headed back home and arrived in time for the ice cream social.  Duane timed it that way!  Next week we hope to fit in another day tour.  Stay tuned!

Louise and Duane