I don’t like wasting money but I’m afraid today I did exactly that and threw away my prepaid day pass to the Disney theme parks, abandoning Jim and Sue to the nightmare of brightly coloured plastic and mouse ears. I jumped in the car, put the pedal to the metal, and got the hell out of there just as fast as I could.
I didn’t slow down till I was 30 miles north-east of Orlando, pulling into the Blue Springs State Park which couldn’t have been more perfect. It’s a fresh-water spring feeding the St John River and bubbles up into a 15-metre wide pool of incredible beauty, surrounded by lush forest. It then flows down to join the main river, forming a tributary some 10 metres wide and a couple of metres deep. During the winter it’s the home of manatees which come up for the constant warmth of the water compared to the cooler temperatures of the main river. I didn’t see any manatees today, but there was a turtle on a log, several enormous catfish, and a billion lizards. And a squirrel. Oh, and some birds. And absolutely NO mouse ears 🙂
Turtle on a log
After a lovely hour or so strolling along the stream I hopped back in the car and headed east till I hit the coast at New Smyrna Beach, where I turned right and followed the road to the end in the preservation area of the Canaveral National Seashore. This beautiful desolate stretch of coastline stretches for miles and is stunning unspoilt Atlantic beach backed by dunes and heathland.
Canaveral National Seashore
I spent a very pleasant afternoon here topping up the tan before reluctantly pointing the car back inland towards the commercial hellhole of Disney. I believe the French used to refer to EuroDisney as “Cultural Chernobyl”…
I didn’t get back till about 9pm (due to general ineptitude at reading road-signs) and spent the rest of the night locked in my room burning Jim’s video footage to DVD for him to take home. The outside world didn’t exist as far as I was concerned, and a very nice bottle of Californian Merlot helped me forget my surroundings.