15.6.2012 – 15.6.2012  32 °C

Another early start this morning as we wanted to make up for some lost time yesterday arvo. Our plan for today was to try and get ourselves thru to Tallahassee, the capital of Florida. Our first stop for the day (and morning tea) was at the Homosassa Wildlife State Park. Our guide book read like it was going to be a crappy small zoo and it was surprisingly quite good! We hopped onto a little elec barge and went up a part of Pepper Creek to the main entry to the zoo. The barge trip was a really good way to see what Florida must have looked like prior to the influx of settlers.. lots of jungle-y plants and a few turtles sun baking on rocks! I think the plant I’m most impressed with here in this part of Florida is the Spanish Moss. It’s the plant you sometimes see in movies about the southern swamps, the tendril-y plant that hangs off bigger cedars and oaks. It looks like the trees are covered in this hanging mossy stuff.. Really cool!

We arrived at the main part of the zoo just in time to see the Manatee show. I always thought that Manatee’s are the same as Dugong (and they are definitely related) but I somehow think the Aussie cousins must be smaller.. These animals are ENORMOUS! I guess they get fed well here in captivity so this might account for it! The lagoon that the Manatees swim in is quite large and has an underwater viewing spot so you can actually see them eating their lettuce! (Apparently they are big fans of fresh water and lettuce).

The zoo is supposed to showcase native Floridian animals but is also home to its resident hippo (which is apparently a “rare” Floridian hippo, one of a kind even!). The reason the zoo has a hippo is that the zoo was once a private affair and housed all sorts of animals. When it was donated to the govt all of the animals were able to be sold (to other zoos) except the hippo, so he was declared as a rare Floridian hippo and therefore was able to stay in the zoo for Florida animals!! Louie (the hippo) was quite a site to see.. Gosh they can open their jaws!! No wonder us humans don’t last long if they decide to come after us!!

Of course the zoo had heaps of alligators and also had a family of river otters. I probably enjoyed the owl exhibitions and the pink spoonbills the most. Mainly because I have never seen either of these animals so far in my travels.. The owls are so cute, just like you see in Harry Potter! The entire zoo is actually a rehabilitation centre, with most animals being prepared to go back into the wild. Any that can’t go back into the wild are kept in the zoo in permanent retirement!

We had some lunch at the park before we re-hit the road for Tallahassee. The drive up was fairly uneventful although the further north we went the more Southern it seemed to get.. What I mean is that we saw more and more older style houses and big avenues of old trees covered in Spanish moss!

Tallahassee is much more Southern than the other cities in Florida. We stopped in downtown to grab a cold drink and chill out. Here we started to really hear the accent and get the “y-all” treatment!! Tallahassee was the only Southern capital that wasn’t captured by the Union soldiers during the civil war.. I think that has a lot to do with the fact that I don’t think that Florida would have had that big of a population at this time and what would the Union really have solved by capturing this city (which was probably not much more than a small town!)?? The other interesting fact about Tallahassee is that it is far closer to Atlanta, Georgia than to Miami!!

We tested out some Cuban fare for dinner tonight. (We figured this might be our last real chance to try this type of cuisine). It reminded me of Mexican food with a more Lime flavour and not as spicy as Mexican. We ordered Mojo Chicken (pronounced Moho)- Lime basted bbq chicken, which was nice, Mojo Pork, not as good, and a Picadillo, which is ground beef flavoured with lime juice… There is a theme here huh? All of the mains came with sides, we ordered black beans (which are pretty good but the colour is off putting and how many beans can one person really eat anyhow?), red beans (similar to Mexican red beans but more of a casserole with veges and bacon), and two different types of banana type plant that was both fried and sugared… not a fan… and finally Yuca plant deep fried, which is sort of like stringy potato. All in all, I’m glad I tried some Cuban food but I’m probably not going to work hard at replicating the food at home!

The remainder of my evening was spent waiting up for a very special occasion occurring in Australia.. My best friend’s wedding!! I was so lucky, Y’s sister skyped the whole ceremony for me so that I could enjoy the whole show.. Congratulations Mr and Mrs Cheyne!!

Song of the Day–  Various, Guantanamera