Today we traveled to Billie’s Swamp Safari, some two hours away for a Swamp Buggy Tour
with our new Hamilton, NJ friends, Larry and Pat Runge.
After registering we were soon off in a “swamp buggy”
Although the Swamp Buggy we took was somewhat larger
Interestingly, our tour was less over water and wetlands and more over plains
and through heavily vegetated Hammocks (unique areas of hardwood forest that are found only in South Florida and the Keys and characterized by a closed canopy of low-growing hardwoods and palms with a fairly open shrub layer and sparse herb layer, the plants growing in these hammocks are a mix between tropical and temperate species)
Our guide was both humorous and extremely informative,
especially with respect to the vegetation, the wide variety of medicinal uses or many of the plants, the life styles of the local indigenous native Americans who lived in the area before the European invasion,
and the wildlife … some of which was native to the area while other animals came from around the world and which included;
Cape Buffalo
Raccoon
Southern Bison
Ostrich
Red Deer (the preferred food of the area’s elusive panthers)
- Spur Thigh Tortoise
