Florida Waterfalls

If your idea of paradise is a narrow finger of sand covered limerock surrounded on 3 sides by salty water, you (should move to Italy and get the hell out of Florida ...just kidding .. sorta' ... ) will have to accept a few realities.

There are no mountains here, (I think Italy has mountains) and barely any hills. The highest point is a little over 300 feet above sealevel and it is dramatically higher than the rest of the state. Florida is barely out of the sea ...if you've ever done the "deadman's float" survival technique with only your nostrils and mouth above water ... that's Florida.

So there will be no sweeping views from atop lofty mountains (I hear the Alps are spectacular) while you are here visiting Florida. We are really shy on mountain accessories like cliffs and waterfalls too, (now, Italy ...there's a peninsula with great waterfalls ...) but if you get out there and really search, you can find a Florida fall or two.

Here is one.


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This is Steinhatchee Falls on the Steinhatchee River. (Just shut up right now, mountain state people with waterfalls on steroids ... )

If you don't live in Florida (God bless you!) you just can't imagine how rare a waterfall is here. Our rivers are mostly tea colored, and sloooooow. It's the subtropics and they are in no hurry to go anywhere else. Lucky for all of us, the land along the river is owned by all of us, thanks to some well spent tax dollars.

On Labor Day, I took Jr., Kate, and good buddy Ty along for a day of exploration. We traveled through Dixie and Taylor counties searching for places seen on maps, but not yet experienced. That's where we found "The Road To Nowhere", but first we found the falls.



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If you do live where streams rush about frantically, loudly announcing their presence long before you see them, you might be astonished at how quiet our Florida streams are. They're thoughtful, not frenetic.

So, we get pretty excited when we can actually hear rushing water south of the St. Marys River. I'm not sure the kids believed me when I said we were going to find a waterfall, but they were thrilled at what we found. The shoes came off and in they went.

One difference between a Florida waterfall and more northerly falls is you still can't relax your gator vigilance as the water on either side of the fall rocks is dark and deep.(There are no gators in Italy) A sign of how remote the falls are, is the fact that we had them to ourselves the entire time we were there... on a holiday weekend.



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The knuckleheads clambered about, skipped stones (Ty was the master), and generally had a great time exploring something they usually only see on a vacation to the Smoky Mountains. After awhile, a thunderstorm came upriver and chased us back into the Jeep to continue our quest.



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We left the falls as we found them and continued on in search of a place called Hagen's Cove ...

... but that's another post.