Florida: Marathon - Crane Point Nature Trail & Museum

Day 210

With today being Saturday, we had several choices for activities. When we walked to the restaurant Thursday night, we saw a church advertising a Free Pancake Breakfast for this morning. Wednesday, when we went shopping, we saw the signs for the Pigeon Key Arts Festival at the Marathon Park. On that same outing, we saw the Crane Point museum and nature trail.

We skipped the pancake breakfast. In fact I remembered last night as I was going to bed, but totally forgot about it this morning and had my normal bowl of cereal. By unspoken agreement we both had in mind to visit Crane Point today. Clark and I had both forgotten about the Arts Festival. I only remembered that today was the day for it when we rode past a sign advertising the event on our way to Crane Point.

Looking at the weather the day before, we found late morning until mid-afternoon looked to be the best window for weather. We biked the two miles down the road and arrived at Crane Point just after 11:00. Perfect!

When we saw the price of $15 per person, we had a decision to make - pay or leave. The salesclerk applied a $1 per person discount coupon for us, so we decided to stay and explore the grounds. I am glad we did as we both enjoyed our visit very much. The property covers 63 acres of the "real Florida" as they like to call it here. As we made our way along the trails, we saw so many beautiful and interesting sights it is hard to know what to include in the blog.

We hiked almost all the trails on this map except Palm Trail.
We even walked part way down Palm Trail and decided it was
"more of the same" so we went back to the main road.

We started at the Cracker House, visited the Butterfly Meadow (we actually saw several butterflies), followed the Bahama Trail to Adderley House (Adderley Lane was too wet), visited Adderley house and learned all about George Adderley (a truly remarkable man), saw the exterior of the Crane House (closed now as it needs repair), walked out to The Point (loved the cool breeze), followed Sunset Boardwalk out to the water's edge (several hours too early for sunset), followed Crane Road as far as Palm Trail (nice but more of same views), backed up and returned to Crane Road (shorter distance), and finally came back to the museum and gift shop.

Some areas were nicely shaded

Some breathtakingly beautiful

Others dark and shadowed by the heavy foliage

Still others covered in the roots of the Red Mangroves

I was happy to see this guy on the edge of the trail.
I hate getting cobwebs on me while hiking.
Just where was that spider when the web went in my hair??

Many trails consisted of roots and limestone rocks

Here I am making my way through the growth

Sometimes I had to duck under the low-hanging branches
while watching for places to step

 I made my way through the trees, ducking low branches, avoiding the Poisonwood plant that is similar to poison ivy, watching out for spiders and webs (a few webs got me), and trying not to trip on roots and rocks. All the while I was thinking about the information I had read about the Cranes moving here when the land was still "raw". It said that as he used a machete to make his way through the growth, Mr Crane wondered at the beauty around him and wanted to preserve it for others. I am so glad that he did, but I would not expect myself to be making the same comments if I was dealing with wetlands, mangrove roots, snakes, spiders, and mosquitoes.

Tread carefully!!
I wouldn't want to stunt this guy's growth by stepping on him!

We found eerie-colored water around some Red Mangroves.

From the informational signposts strategically positioned throughout the property, we learned that Black Mangroves have roots that come up out of the water so they can get air. Clark referred to the roots thereafter as their snorkels!

We truly had to watch our step as we made our way along the trails to Adderley House. We did not take the wider Adderley Lane because I could see that the path was very wet with huge puddles. The Bahama Trail seemed slightly higher in elevation and dryer as a result. In some places dried out, old palm leaves were laid on the trail to provide some places to step.

George Adderly, a black man from the Bahamas, made his house using a recipe from home that took advantage of the shells on the land and made a kind of shell "concrete" for the walls. A restoration project is underway currently as the walls are showing their age. He built the house well over 100 years ago. Other Bahamians later came to live in Adderley Town as it came to be known.

Adderley House Sitting Room

 George Adderley was very industrious. He held church services in his own home for many years until a church was built in the town. He made money by making charcoal, a long and tedious process, to sell in Key West. He also went out sponging and used a bucket with a glass bottom to see the sea floor and find the sponges. Once he spied a sponge he wanted, he pulled it up into his dinghy with a three-pronged rake. He processed and sold his sponges to customers at market in Key West.

George Adderley - a True Pioneer!

Outside of Adderley House

Adderley Town consisted of five houses

 As we walked on towards the Crane House, we got a glimpse of the Gulf through the branches.

Sneak Peak at the Gulf

Along the way, we found the bird sanctuary
and followed the winged sign in for a look-see

 Although I enjoyed looking at the variety of birds on site, I felt somewhat sorry for the birds on display. They were all penned up in cages. I did get to look an osprey in the eyes and talk to him. He seemed quite interested in all I had to say. What a magnificent bird! They also had hawks on display.

Cute sign for those who remember the S.S. Minnow

 After almost an hour and a half of hiking and looking around, we finally arrived at Crane Point.  The clerk at the sales desk had told us that we could walk out to the point and back in 1.5 hours, or we could take all day depending on our interest in the area. Seems like we were somewhere between those two extremes.

Spectacular View! No wonder the Cranes built their house here.

Planning to sit for a moment and enjoy the view!

We loved the cool breeze at the point, but all too soon we realized that we needed to head back to the museum. We still had at least a mile to go, time was getting on towards 2:00, and we needed to figure out lunch plans.

We saw several cacti today like this beauty.

 On the trail back we passed by Sunset Boardwalk, and of course we needed to walk out to the end.

Sunset Boardwalk

 What must it have been like to work in this wetland terrain with the bugs to build this walkway (and others like it)?

One last view - Looking up!

We asked at the shop desk, when we got back to the museum, if we could go find lunch and return to complete our tour. She gave us a pass to come back and suggested several alternatives for lunch. We opted for buying subs at Publix basically across the street. It was close and they use Boar's Head brand. Yum! We came back with our sandwiches and a bottle of water and made use of the picnic tables to eat our meal. Then we went into the museum to learn about Marathon history.

Adderley Town - built 1904
Flagler Railroad Project - completed 1912 (took 7 years to build)
Railroad destroyed by hurricane in 1923

When we left Crane Point, my watch showed the time to be 3:00 or so. All told, we walked almost non-stop for well over three hours including our walk to the grocery store and back again for food to keep us going. I suggested we stop by the Pigeon Key Arts Festival on our way back to the boat. We did stop there, but for two reasons we did not enter the festival - first, the admission price seemed high to me at $7, and second and more importantly, the skies looked threatening. I expected to get drenched by rain at any moment and wanted to head for the boat as fast as I could peddle.

Luckily, we made it back to the boat without rain; however, Clark stopped to demonstrate his folding bike to a neighboring boat. He was fine because he had folded his bike as part of his demo, but then it started to rain, and I got caught in the rain trying to collapse mine to bring it on board. The bike and I only got a little wet. Shortly after we were both on board, the skies opened up and it poured and poured and poured.

The temperatures dropped along the way, and we went from the hot almost 80 degrees of the afternoon to a chilly 65. By 8:00 most of the rain appeared to have moved on, but by then the winds had come in! All through tonight and throughout tomorrow we are expecting winds in the 22 to 27 mph range like yesterday. Fun, fun, fun!

At least we had a beautiful mid-day today. I cannot complain given the spectacular day I had!