Thursday 29th December – Sanibel island

About an hour north of CS to the West of Fort Myers, is a chain of islands.  We had recommendations to visit them and we were not disappointed.  We crossed the massive toll bridge over to Sanibel Island and headed to the J.N ‘Ding’ Darling National Wildlife Refuge.  There was a bicycle trail around the refuge so we could stop as often as we liked. The wildlife was incredible. 

Alligator with scary eyes...

Ruth's favourite - ospreys AGAIN! But this time two nesting ones!

Roseate Spoonbill

White Ibis

Sorry, don't know this one! But I got soooo close.

View of multiple bird species in the lagoon from an Observation tower

Alligator next to the road that I cycled right past

Little Blue Heron

Yes, another osprey!

There were observation towers and boardwalks to cycle along, it was so well done.  We spent hours there so we then had to choose whether to head back to the RV or stay on our bikes and do some more mileage so we could catch the sunset on the island of Captiva. 

We went for the bike ride and I enjoyed a sunset swim.  We hadn’t packed our bike lights for the day as we were not expecting to be out for so long but we had to cycle back down the paths in the darkness to find the RV.  For me, it had been the best day’s wildlife watching of the trip so far.

Me having a sunset swim... bliss

I forgot to mention that I had tried to find somewhere different for us to stay between CS and our New Year’s Eve hotel in Tampa.  Again, the Florida craziness meant that I really struggled.  So, in the end we booked another night for tonight at Collier Seminole, despite having to move to another plot.  Tomorrow we would make our way to Sarasota to meet up with Steve and Barbara who had invited us for dinner and we had persuaded them to let us park out the front of their property.