After trying unsuccessfully to get into another park in the Keys we decided to go to the Everglades. There are two campgrounds within an easy drive. The first one is just inside the National Park Gate and is called Long Pine Key. The second one is 38 miles further in and down close to Florida Bay and that is called Flamingo Campground. There are some electric sites at Flamingo and the rest are dry camping. So we decided on the spur of the moment to go to Flamingo to see if we could scoop and electric site. We didn't. They were all occupied or reserved. No matter, we have a generator and full fresh water tank, so we paid for 2 nights with the option of staying a third night if we wished. The non-electric sites are $16 a day. the electric sites are $30 a day. We certainly were not going to use $14 a day in diesel to keep the batteries charged. The sites there are huge! we were able able to get a site looking into the bush that surrounds the campground. Lots of birds, butterflies and mosquitoes! it is so peaceful there! not even the sound of the generators disturbed us.
If you stay at this campground it is preferable to have a boat or a canoe as there is a lot of water, being on the bay and there are also canals surrounding the area. We were able to see a North American crocodile which inhabit the waters around there. We did a ranger conducted walk which went into the history of the area, the good, the bad and the ugly. Very interesting.
Here are the photos from our 2 day stay there.
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| Entering Flamingo Campground |
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| Our site was massive! We are parked and there is still this amount of space in front of us. |
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| All set up. |
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| "Eco" Tent in the tenting area. |
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| The Eco Tent |
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| Information board about the Eco Tent. |
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| Solar heating for the showers. |
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| Lots of space in the tent camping area |
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| Florida Bay and the muddy shoreline |
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| Bike ride along the Guy Bradley trail |
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| Kayakers on Florida Bay. |
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| Coastal Prairie field |
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| info about the Coastal Prairie |
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| Tri-color Heron |
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| Stalking his lunch. |
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| Cute little trailer from Micro-lite. |
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| A vehicle that would not look out of place in the Dakar Rally. |
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| the other side |
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| Front View |
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| Educational trail walk. The subject was about the history of the Flamingo area. |
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| The canal at the Marina. There was a North American crocodile swimming in the canal, but we did not get a photo. |
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