It had to happen eventually. Seeing so many beautiful places that look like tropical jungle (well if you are a film director), we must eventually arrive where the film makers have been before. I am not quite sure where to start in describing the today’s trip. There are three major things about it. Our destination is one of the largest natural springs in the world. It puts out at least 250 million gallons of water a day and has been known to increase that to 1 billion gallons (ok so they are US gallons an smaller than ours, but that is still a lot of water). It is the location where Tarzan films were shot, its biggest film was ‘The Creature from the Black Lagoon’, a good old fashioned horror film from the fifties. It is also an amazing wild life area of outstanding beauty Before I get into this I had better say that our destination was Wakulla Springs, about 30 miles south of Tallahassee.
We arrived and wandered through the azaleas and camellias, which are in full bloom at the moment, to get to the Wakulla Sprngs, which is a lake about 200 feet wide, surrounded by cypress groves and wetland (swamp to you and me). Numerous birds were to be seen in the trees and various ducks and water birds swum in the water, we spotted a manatee and 2 calves. The weather today was perfect clear blue sky and not too hot. The lake empties into the river, where one can take a boat ride, which we thought was wonderful. We motored downstream seeing alligator, heron, ibis and varieties of duck, including the amazing American Wood Duck (no I don’t know why it is called that), which is very brightly coloured. Every turn of the river seemed to bring new vistas of beauty, which I could not hope to describe. As we returned on the far side of the river we threaded in between reed beds, islands and cypress trees in the river. Ranger Bob, our guide, as he pointed out various animals, like a couple of snakes just a few feet from the boat, showed us the very spots where Johnny Weismuller dived into the water in his Tarzan films. Also where the Creature from the Black Lagoon appeared from under the water. He showed us where they filmed Airport 77, the underwater sequence. Why did they make these films here? Well, yes they wanted the jungle effect, but also the water is so clear that filming underwater sequences can be done easily.
Here comes the mind boggling bit: as we cruised back round into the lake, we passed over the opening in the bottom of the lake where the water comes in. The spring lake is 120 feet deep, the cavern that the water comes through is large enough to fit an airplane in. When first investigated by divers (who could see at 120 feet using daylight, because it was so clear) fossil animal bones were found on the bottom, mastodon, sabre tooth tiger, etc. They have a mastodon fibula on display, it is about 5 feet long and about a foot thick.
The cavern then goes to the west and down to 250 feet, divers need to use decompression techniques to dive there. The cave system has been explored, though not completely. Last year they met up with known caves to the north. This now makes it one of the largest cave systems known in the world, 28 miles of continuous underground caves. They have still not explored all of it.
This was an amazing day out, we have been overwhelmed by the beauty of Wakulla Springs. We recommend that you visit it as son as you can.
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