PRAIRIE CREEK
March 25, 2015
(Trip Report by JB)
Prairie
Creek in Gainesville, Florida, is a hidden gem just a 1/2 mile south from
the right shoreline on Lake Newnan from Ed Powers Park.Today we
launched around 11 a.m. with some cloud cover overhead and smooth as glass
water underneath us on Lake Newnan.
Upon
entering the entrance to the creek you encounter towering moss draped
cypress trees on both sides of the bank. Just past Kates Fishcamp you
paddle under two concrete bridges and are immediately entering a tight
twisting mysterious creek. All around you are huge staggering ancient
cypress knees each an artwork to themselves. The water is a blackwater
creek from being surrounded by much woodlands.
We
soon encountered an owl whoooo was startled by our presence and flew
into the safety of the forest where undoubtedly it was watching us from its camouflaged perch. Also encountered red shouldered hawk, great blue heron, a young snowy white egret
and many melodic tunes from various other winged friends, all around us,
we were serenaded with lovely music.
The sun
began to make an appearance and the cloud cover soon burned off. This
gave the creek an even more enchanted feeling with sunshine peaking
through the thick green canopy overhead, nature's cathedral. A truly
beautiful sight to behold. Each twisting turn we made brought us even
more stunning views than the last.
About
2 miles into the journey we started to encounter bitty gators on downed
trees along the bank.
At this point we came upon a small bridge where
we decided to have lunch.Walking along the bridge
we spotted some
fuzzy scat that we are trying to ascertain to whom the droppings belong.
Bear,bobcat, fox? Along with the mysterious scat on the bridge we also
encountered bull ants, so we abandoned the bridge for eating lunch on
the creek bank on our yaks. A mysterious, low growling sound was heard from the opposite side of the bridge where we were having lunch, so we quickly finished up and got back onto the water.
As we floated down the creek, we heard another low growl, unmistakingly belonging to a young bull
gator claiming his mating spot. We felt safe passing this young bull,
but a little further up we heard a very loud growl undoubtedly belonging
to a very large gator and decided to use common sense and turned around
for the very scenic journey back.
Many pics were taken along with fantastic memorable sights that will never be forgotten.
We logged about 6 miles, but it seemed much longer because this is a very fluid creek with many twists and turns.
Definitely
worth a return trip to go further down the creek, perhaps after the
gators have had their fun in this wild wonderful magical way!
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