This post is going to be a bit ‘over the place’. Not because it’s taking me so long to get to it or because I’m disorganised but because Cortez and Tampa was so lovely and so much fun I am scrambling to find decent photo’s of our stay. We just simply forgot to take them. But I have found a few. I hope you like bridges. Yes, there’s more bridges (like the first two photo of bridges we encountered on our way to Cortez) but then we’re still in Florida so we’re still amongst the everglades.
Cortez is a tiny fishing/holiday village just south of Tampa on the Gulf of Mexico. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortez,_Florida). It reminded Shane & I of Ettalong/Woy Woy 50 years ago or the Tweed Coast many moons ago. It is a beautiful little community surrounded by glistening white beaches and aqua-marine blue seas. It is shielded from the Gulf directly by Anne Marie Island a gorgeous sub-tropical paradise. Fishing is fantastic and the pace here is laid back (despite the hot orange 4WD included). With marina’s and a Maritime Museum stacked with local historical items there is a heap to do.
With only a few days there we headed to the nearby city of Tampa for a drive. This drive featured a crossing of yet another bridge (one of many actually) but this one pictured is called the Sunshine Skyway Bridge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_Skyway_Bridge) for obvious reasons. This monster is an incredible drive but what impressed us is the huge fishing piers built on either side of it just for public recreation. It cost us $4/car +$4 each (+tax of course) to drive onto the piers but this is where we had to go to take those last 2 great photos of the bridge.
We continued onto Tampa as we passed this massive hotel before diverting to some of Tampa’s beaches. In Tampa we were interested in seeing historic Ybor (pronounced ee-bor). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ybor_City) After navigating our way by GPS we managed to find council provided parking behind the ‘Church of Scientology’. Note in the first photo of Ybor, the streetcar, which was terrific and goes all the way to downtown Tampa. The next 9 photo’s can show councils how to do an historic area well. This is an area famous for it’s immigrant population and how it developed due to a chap (strangely named Ybor) who introduced tobacco and cigar ‘rolling’ to a once swamp area. As you walk the streets here you can still watch them hand rolling cigars in some shop windows.
Next day we found ourselves hydrating after another hot day at “Bunny and the Pirates”, a bar attached to our RV Park. Todd, the barman also ran a day job hiring out clear (yes, see-through) kayaks which were getting rave reviews by people who were using them to paddle over the coral reefs that populate the marine area here. Shane was halfway through an IPA when Todd convinced her to try a “Chocolate Peanut Butter Beer”. Guess what? It DID taste like chocolate and she loved it. We had more than one visit to Bunny’s. At the other end of the RV Park was the “Sea Hagg”, a curio shop of nautical nic nacs that could consume hours of your time. On our last night in Cortez we ate out at the Seafood Shack which was just around the corner. As we ate we watched dolphins playing off the wharf as the sun set.
The remaining pics (all but the last) are some random photo’s taken on our way to the next stop on our travels, Mims, on the Space Coast, next to Cape Canaveral. (In a bad piece of planning by us we missed a rocket launch by just 2 days.) The first vehicle picture is about a carry tray that is available here that attaches to your rear bumper and we’ve seen them weighed down with some incredible loads. The gold Corvair I just couldn’t resist. In a carpark with hundreds of other cars this beauty just glowed. A bit further up the road we found in the tiniest town this rather large Baptist College that seemed to come from nowhere. The remainder of this trip was in one of the most torrential downpours Shane and I have seen for many, many years. We wanted to stop and pullover but there just wasn’t anywhere to do so. There were no shoulders on the road just swamp. Pleasingly our new caravan did not allow in a single drop. And the final picture? That’s my new favourite beer, Lime Cactus Light Beer at 4% alcohol.
Watch for more as we visit Cape Canaveral and the NASA Visitor Centre.
Cheers
Garry and Shane.