We awoke to rain, and our side door is still leaking. We decided not to stay another day as the area is quite damp, and the towering trees don’t help this. So, we drove straight to Providence Canyon State Park.

We arrived at 2.30pm hoping to camp, but there was only tent camping there. The providence State park is a series of canyons and they even refer to it as a mini grand canyon. But surely that makes it just a mini canyon…

We did a two hour walk around the canyon and down into it. The trail was mucky underfoot, and we sludged through what looked like a red clay, but Mike said it was a sandy silt. The canyons towered over us, a gradient of colour as the layers changed from a deep red at the top, to a light yellow at the bottom. It was really impressive, but I don’t think you could compare it to the immensity of the grand canyon.

The camping for RV’s was a 7 mile drive from the canyon, at the Florence Marina State Park. As we checked in, there were big black double decker bugs flying around. But these were to be the least of my fears. 

We found our camping ground, set up, and had our dinner (Spanish omelette with salad.) Then we went for a walk to the marina. I wasn’t going to take my zoom camera, as I didn’t think I would need it to take photos of boats in the marina. But we made that mistake one other time when we saw a snake, and I had to take photos with my phone. “Always take the camera,” Mike said. And we were glad we did.

Then when we saw the sign. Beware of Alligators. I had no idea we were in Alligator country, the lady at check-in said nothing about them. Perhaps you are just supposed to know. But we never do advanced research so we know nothing.

I looked into the lake of the marina and saw what looked like a log floating on the surface.

“There’s one,” I said, semi-joking.

“Don’t be silly,” Mike said.

I got my camera and zoomed in, and yep, sure enough, a gator (as the locals call them) lay on the surface, sunning himself.

I snapped a few photos, but was keen to move on.

Then we saw another one, closer this time, and it was swimming. I snapped some more photos, and got a video of it swimming, kicking myself that I still haven’t managed to find a decent tripod.

We don’t do much (any) advance research of where we stay, so little surprises like this are a real treat.

When we got back to the camp, we saw a couple who had been looking for gators in a different location and they hadn’t seen any, so we directed them to where we saw them. That’s just typical. I reckon if we had’ve gone looking we probably wouldn’t have seen them either.

The camp host said they’ve occasionally had them walking through the campground, but not often, so that put my mind at rest a bit.

A very exciting day. We are going to Florida tomorrow. Probably more gaters there.