Juniper is my favorite place to paddle. It is my favorite place to be when I am alone. Last week I did yet another solo venture into the wild and wooly Juniper Wilderness Area. Many of you know Juniper so you know what I mean. It is a twisty ribbon of clear spring water flowing briskly ( for Florida) through a sub-tropical corridor in the middle of the Ocala National Forest.
Not many travel downstream from the takeout a SR 19 unless they are riding an airboat and coming up from Lake George. It's an easy 3 mile paddle down to lake George, but a hard paddle back upstream. The airboats are the biggest deterrent but alas this was a weekday
I had gotten there early to try to catch the sunrise. The night before I had used Google Earth to try to identify the best east-west stretch of river in hopes of seeing the sun earlier rather than later.
I followed my GPS to the proper location and I made it on time for the sun to just start peeking over the trees in the distance. A low, misty cloud gave depth and coolness to the air.
Paddling further down I found a beautiful place with a lower skyline that I will try to catch the sunrise next time.
The lower Juniper is different from the upper in many ways, mostly because it's bigger. but the plant communities are different too. It's hard to describe.
On the lower Juniper lives a stand of Northern white cedar . They tell me it's unusual for it to live so far south but here it is. The norther white cedar was a favorite tree for dugout canoes because it is so much softer a wood than cypress. This area is known as a place of great biodiversity with wetlands and spring run and sub-tropical swamp and pine flatwoods and sand pine forest.
Early and very still I see a young eagle sitting in a tall cedar tree.
I decide to take a quick detour through the little passage into Little Juniper Creek. It's beautiful here and I am back into a small intimate stream. I begin playing a game I play with myself when I paddle . It goes like this - I want to turn around and go back, but I will just see what is around the next bend - and so on for the next hour.
So lush and deeply shaded is Little Juniper I find a bumper crop of shoestring fern growing on tree trunks over the water.
I paddle up to a fish bed made from snail shells and find that the fish have also used sherds of ancient pottery for gravel here in the swamp. The snail shells are also the material used by the mound builders of interior Florida. This was a beautiful long ago home on the Juniper.
So I make it out of the Little Juniper and back into the larger creek and back into the light.
It is still still no one but me. The maple trees in the background are just starting to turn.
Biodiversity is hard to see if you aren't familiar with plant communities. It's easy to appreciate once you see.
Holly, Loblolly Bay, palm , poison ivy, norther white cedar, live oak, swamp lily and host of other plants are here clinging together on a small mound of peat. Frankly, I can't tell the whole story of the value of biodiversity other than it's rare and special and it supports a variety of animal species. The pine trees are up the hill.
Speaking of swamp lilies these ones are at the mouth of Mormon Branch. I didn't travel up the branch as I had wanted to because of fallen trees in the way . . so . . . next time.
I make my way back upstream taking time to sit and wait for the light to get right . I actually take the time to unfold my tripod and set settings and all that stuff. It's so beautiful out on this new fall day that I'm slowed from my usual run and gun photography.
I sit and watch this great blue heron for a long while. I saw it early this morning in the exact same place.
After moving slowly toward it I get too close and it flies away
I continue around a few bends and I see my friend again. Moving more slowly I get closer, taking my time. It's just us two, no one else. We've been here since before 7 AM and haven't seen any other humans.
but alas the heron is smart enough keep its distance from humans and flies away again
When I get back to the takeout at about noon, the heron is there and so are some people. I am about 15 feet from the heron now and it is trying to tell me to give it some space, but it knows I am a slow moving human and hangs with me for awhile.
It's such a nice day I paddle up to the swimmin' hole to see if my friends are on the river today and
I hang there for another while.
but alas it's just me and the mullet.
Here am I . Where are my peeps?
I hear some car doors slam shut up at the cabin so I skeedaddle to let them enjoy their time of no humans.
So I wend my way back to the takeout, leaving the place I love and knowing that the lower Juniper is where it's happnin'.
So remember to get out there and find what is there for you. It doesn't need to be spectacular to be spectacular. Try to go on a weekday and by all means - try to get there for the sunrise.
