Before I go on, I don't know why the area is called Shark Valley. The parking lot and Visitor Center is smack dab in the middle of a sawgrass prairie so there sure as hell aren't any sharks. Since Florida is basically sea level, there isn't a valley either. I have not looked up why it has that name yet, but is seems misnamed to me.
Moving on, there is a fifteen mile paved loop road that leaves the Visitor Center and heads into the Everglades. The fifteen mile loop has an observation tower at the midpoint. The view of the glades is pretty extensive. On the road you are sure to see many alligators and wading birds.
The beauty of this road s that it is car free. There only three ways to travel on this road. You could walk any or all of the fifteen miles, you could take the two hour tram tour ($27/ adult) or you can ride a bike. There is also the standard National Park entrance fee of $30 which is good for a week.
As we drove by on the Tamiami Trail I pulled over to think about it. Bike riding this loop was something I wanted to do but he hadn't made plans to do it. The bike rental is $9/hour. Compare that to the tourist trap Key West where we had all day bike rentals for twelve buck each, I thought nine dollars an hour was ridiculous. The more I thought about it, the more I realized this was my only shot to see the Everglades on this trip so we went in.
I paid my thirty dollar admission fee, Then we rented bikes. I knew that I would stop at every bird and every gator, so even though we could probably do the whole bike ride in under two hours, it was probably going to take three hours. We picked out the bikes and off we went to explore the Everglades.
We did spend three hours on the road. We ended up seeing about twenty alligators. I saw Wood Storks at three places on our trip, but this was the only place I could get a photo of one. I loved our three hours in the 'glades. Including our thirty dollar entrance fee the bike ride cost us $84. That will hopefully be the most expensive bike ride of my life. That said, if I didn't go for the ride, I'd be regretting it for a long time. The wildlife was incredible. Photos below
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| Great Blue Heron |
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| Anhinga |
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| The first gator we saw on our bikes |
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| This was the second gator we saw. He was along the edge of the road |
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| Fairly certain these are Red Shouldered Hawks |
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| I get that the Everglades is a sea of grass, but it is wet, so I was pleasantly surprised to see this Meadowlark pop up |
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| I so wish the grass wasn't in the way in this photo |
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| White Ibis |
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| There was an active alligator nest very close to the parking area |
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| Wood Stork |
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| The observation tower is the halfway point. There are restrooms and a bubbler but the water sucks |
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| The road through the swamp |
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| Miles of sawgrass just past those trees. |
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