St. Augustine Alligator Farm and Zoological Garden

We awoke around 5 am this morning and did some reading and our German lessons in the room at the Day’s Inn. Breakfast was Raisin Bran, yogurt and bananas from the Winn Dixie. We called Steve and Marcia around 7:30 to confirm plans for the day. 

We decided to go to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm and Zoological Garden this morning when it opened at 9 am. We made the short drive on A1A to Anastasia Island and parked in the Alligator Farm parking lot. We were pleased that our membership in the Cincinnati Zoo got all four of us in at half price. Although we had been here just 5 years ago, we hadn’t remembered a lot of the displays and some things had been upgraded since we were here. For example, there is now a sloth display that wasn’t there before.  There were lots of displays of birds as well as a few lemurs and other mammals. Displays held many species of crocodiles and gavials as well as alligators.  Informative signage gave background on each species range, diet and description as well as the status of the population in the wild. 

We were impressed with the varieties of crocodilians and other reptiles but the qualities of the displays. The enclosures gave the animals a suitable habitat while allowing visitors on opportunity to see them and compare features with similar species. For example, we were impressed by the gharial crocodile which has a large heavy body but very long, very narrow mouths that seemed out of place. We learned that this species, native to India, is one of the larger crocodiles and subsists primarily on fish.

We went into the display to see the stuffed body of Gomek, the extremely large 80+ year old crocodile that resided at the alligator farm for many years. From there we went to see Gomek’s replacement, Maximo and his mate, Sydney. These two giant saltwater crocodiles are still young and may grow to surpass the size of Gomek. They were living the enclosure that was built for Gomek and seemed to have adapted well. 

We finished the day at a feeding at the swamp area. At noon, a keeper fed the alligators a mix of preformulated alligator food as well as large rats. The rats were held above the heads of the alligators on a string and the alligators jumped up to eat them. He gave an informative talk on the alligators and their nutritional needs for about 30 minutes started at noon. 

We arrived back at the Day’s Inn a little before 1 pm and had lunch of peanut butter and crackers as well as the cheesy grits and green beans from last night’s dinner.  After lunch Mary walked over to the Our Lady of La Leche Shrine and I walked into the nearby neighborhood to see if I could find a large tree that I remembered from here when we visited in 2015.  

We met Steve and Marcia at 2 pm to drive south on the A1A to go to the Fort Matanzas National Monument. There is a very small fort near the mouth of the Matanzas River to protect upstream towns and the Castillo de San Marcos from invaders. The rangers and volunteers at the park were very helpful and showed us a brief video history of the fort.  

Storm damage prevented us from taking the ferry over to the island to see the fort, but we could look at it from across the river at the visitor center.  Like the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, this structure is made of coquina and had fallen into disrepair until it was taken over by the park service and restored for visitors.   It was built by the Spanish in the 1740 and restored by the National Park Service in the 1920s.

We walked out to the beach area along the Matanzas River and looked across to the fort.  We saw a number of tracks from raccoons and other animals  We didn’t stay long since the beach area was small so we headed back to the car to drive the short distance to the parking area managed by the National Park with access to the beach on the Matanzas River as well as the Atlantic Ocean. The beach was very nice and clean.  Even though the weather was a little cool and there was a steady wind, there were several people walking at the beach, many with small dogs.

We picked up a few shells as we walked along and watched the shore birds picking in the sand. We walked down the beach on the river then went for a short distance on the Atlantic until we reached the parking lot.  The arrangement of the parking lots was nice since walkers could park at one lot then walk on the beach for about a mile ending up at a parking lot that is across the road from the starting point. 

We saw a rain cloud coming our way so we walked the last 100 yards or so at a faster pace to avoid the shower.  We saw cars in the parking lot with both West Virginia and Franklin County, Kentucky plates. It was a nice afternoon and it felt good to get moving. 

We drove the 27 miles from Matanzas Beach back to the Day’s Inn to clean up before dinner. There is a Denny’s Restaurant in our hotel, so we opted to go there since we were all tired. Everyone had a double cheeseburger with Mary and I splitting one. Steve and Marcia both had the wavy fries, but we split an order of onion rings. Everyone enjoyed their meals and came away full. We will get this cheeseburger again because it was well prepared and used very flavorful meat. 

We agreed to meet at 8:30 tomorrow morning to drive south on US A1A. We would spend Saturday in the Merritt Island area near Titusville just looking at wildlife. We are looking forward to the day.