I loved the Circle B Bar Reserve park so much when I went last Wednesday that I just had to go back and explore it more, so Saturday I did.

When I went Wednesday I didn’t do much exploring of this HUGE place (1,267 acres!) because it was getting dark, so I wanted to go earlier in the day next time. I went to Circle B around 2:30pm on Saturday and it was a perfect time of day to go. The weather was really warm and sunny so I knew I’d probably see a lot alligators bathing in the sun and sure enough I did. There were so many alligators, I thought, who needs a zoo or Gator Land when there is this right here for FREE?

I started by walking on the path that takes you to Lake Hancock and it was really pretty. I didn’t see many gators in Lake Hancock, just a couple from a distance, but further down the path along the lake I began to see more. The path gets to a point where the lake is no longer directly on the side of it but rather it turns into a more narrow creek and on the opposite side of the path is swamp and marsh land. This path is called “Alligator Alley”, and is only about 8 feet wide. All along the path you could see areas of flattened grass and bushes where the alligators had crawled through to get to the other side, luckily I didn’t stumble across any trying to cross.

At the end of Alligator Alley the land became very marshy with small ponds of water scattered around the land. It was unlike anything I had seen before, I felt like I was in Africa or somewhere exotic. There were a bunch of different kinds of birds and more gators laying in the sun. There were also a ton of fish swimming in one area of the marsh, the only thing missing was an otter, but I guess they are shy.

I’m really glad I went back to Circle B Bar Reserve, it was so cool seeing all of the alligators and birds in their natural habitat. I didn’t even come close to covering all of the different trails at this place and I can’t wait to go back, hopefully next time I will see an otter!