Everglades Day 2

Monday
We explored another part of the Everglades today - Shark Valley, west of Miami. The Everglades is actually a very shallow, slow-moving river that in some places is just inches deep and 50 miles wide. Sometimes called The River of Grass, it forms as water from Lake Okeechobee, and moves onto the southern Florida plains. The waters then make their way to the Gulf of Mexico at the amazingly slow rate of 2,000 feet per day, or about one mile per 2 ½ days, depending on water depth. The Everglades are half way through their dry season, with rain coming in the form of heavy thunderstorms during the summer months. When we have visited previously it has been later in the season, usually March or April, so we noticed the difference - there being more standing water, as you can see in the top left photo.We took the 2 hour narrated tram tour, which takes you 7 miles through the sawgrass prairie to an observation tower, which offers an extensive view over the Everglades. The return is along another road which parallels a channel of water, which attracts lots of bird life and of course alligators. Unfortunately, we were on the opposite side of the tram, so it was difficult to get decent photos, so once we got back, we walked back for a stretch, to get some better photos. The thumb nail photo shows part of the long spiral ramp up to the observation tower. The top two bird photos are the male and female anhingas, and the bird on the bottom row is a wood stork, the first ones we had seen on this trip.
On our way back to our Airbnb, we stopped for an ice cream and picked up a few things for dinner. One nice thing about our accommodation is that it has a table tennis table, so in the evenings we have a few games of ping pong - I haven’t played for years!