Day 153 Key West - Chokoloskee Island
Trip Start
May 07, 2008
1
163
205
Trip End
Nov 22, 2008
Chokoloskee,
Florida,
United States
Monday, October 6, 2008
Today we had planned to complete our southward journey to the southernmost point in the USA, gee how great is that?
We are finding the weather here very humid and warm, and decided to have a swim to cool off before we moved the last leg.
The pool was nice and well maintained; we all enjoyed a dip before setting off to check out Key West.
We headed the last leg south along the narrow road with views of the water and some wetlands either side.
We arrived at Key West, the last island in the chain that makes up "The Keys" we turned to the right and headed to circumnavigate the Island.
We came into some narrow streets and the "historic Old Town" section, thus, created a fun turn with the Castle, we headed to an advertised car park, this took us into very narrow cobbled road ways and a one way system, and no access for a Castle "type vehicle " to the Car park. "OH GEE!" a short back up to turn, "watch the guy on the ladder!" and out we go, All we were looking for was a coffee place and a wander!
We tracked out towards some metered parking and managed to find a couple in a row, back up our wonderful Castle, feed two meters and set forth to walk the streets.
We managed to find the water and took some photos of us at the water in Key West, then time for a coffee.
Gee one would not think it not too much to ask! Our wanderings took us through a lot of souvenir shops and a lot of bars, yes we might have been a little early at 10:30am yet the bars were open or opening yet no coffee shops.
We tried one for a coffee and tea but they were not open and couldn't accommodate us, at least directed us to a Starbucks. Earnie set off with some more quarters to feed our meters while Karon & Rick found the Starbucks and ordered the tea/coffee.
We just received the order to be caught up with by Earnie, he had spoken to the "not to friendly" parking official, who was not happy about the size of the Castle and suggested (strongly) it be moved, or a $75 fine could be due!
We headed back to the Castle with our Starbucks as takeouts, loaded up and set off with coffee on the go.
We tracked back to the circular route around the island and found ourselves on the Eastern side, again not a lot of beach access with everything built to the water's edge, we continued on until we found a section of road running alongside the water. No parking metres and room to park.
We haul over and head into the water to check out the warmth and sand.
The water was nice to paddle in but underneath the first step was into a white oozing type of mud.
Not nice. Back further the beach appeared better, but at this stage the heat and humidity was enough for us. We tracked our way back to a supermarket car parking area to obtain some groceries and make use of the Restrooms. We piled out of the Castle to run into two people on a scooter, they had noticed our flags in the back window and followed us. They had been to Australia and wanted to check out if we were really Aussies or just pretending to be.
We had quite a chat and shared stories, they had been down to our neck of the woods and done an extensive trip to, Brisbane, Melbourne, the great ocean Road and then back to Brisbane and drive an RV to Sydney.
They intend to return, so we gave them our contact details, so we may get some visitors from Florida.
We set off from the Supermarket to head north, yes this is it! We did our U turn and are heading home.
The path has taken us back up the Keys and across Florida through the Everglades, we managed to spot a couple of Alligators alongside the road and three deer grazing the road edge. We spotted signs for Panthers, but did not spot one.
We headed to a small town called Everglades City to an island out from there, called Chokoloskee Island. We drove past one RV park to the one in the big book (no KOA in this area) . We drove through the first park and decided it wasn't for us, it didn't appear to have any free sites, the place looked nice but was for sale, a difficulty to find the office, we were just not comfortable.
We headed back to the first one we spotted after a few false starts and a couple of circles around to find the office, we have found a RV park to settle in with a large site, wifi, TV, and a mariner as well. Great stuff!
We chose this place on the edge of the Everglades to allow us to take an Airboat ride in the Everglades, this is first on the agenda tomorrow.
