As you know, I love hiking and spending time out in nature. Every year for Mother's Day I get to choose how we will spend the day. This year I decided to check out the Orlando Wetlands Park. I learned about this place from Justin at the Daytona International Skateway, so thank you, Justin!

The Orlando Wetlands Park is located at 25155 Wheeler Rd in Christmas, Florida. It's around an hour drive from Port Orange to get there. The park is a large manmade wetlands. The purpose of it is to allow nature to clean the reclaimed water. The county pumps the water into the wetlands, where nature filters it and then allows it to flow out to the St. John's River. It's a wonderful example of how we can help reuse our resources. In making the wetlands, they put in the trees and vegetation, along with the piping necessary to pump in the massive amounts of water. Nature takes it from there and not only cleans the water, but also provides an oasis for a bevy of wildlife.

The park has an education center, some interpretive signage, picnic tables, restrooms, and trails. We walked the loop trail that was 2.5 miles long (their website said it was 2.5 miles, the sign there said it was 2 miles, my GPS said it was 2.5). The neat thing about walking this trail is that there is wildlife all over the place. Birds of many varieties are on both sides of the trail, wading in the water. We also saw numerous alligators sunning along the water, a snake, and other wildlife, as well as many wildlife tracks on the trail. It was great!

On the entire 2.5 mile walk there is only one very small spot for shade (provided by one large tree), so this trail is wide open and sun drenched. Keep that in mind if you are going there on a hot or sunny day. There were a few benches along the trail, but it's doubtful that people use them, because they are in direct sunlight and they had a lot of bird poop on them. If anyone from Orange County is reading this, I highly recommend they put some covering over the benches so people can really enjoy them by sitting in shade, and it would also prevent the bird droppings from covering the bench.

This is a free park and well worth visiting just to see the birds and alligators in their own natural habitat. We had a great hike! There are some other hiking trails that are off of the one that we did, but it was heating up and the 2.5 miles was good for us on such a hot day. If you go, be sure to take water and sunscreen. They do also have a water bottle refill station, which was pretty neat. Although it is not paved, you could push a stroller on this trail. You can also bike the trail. Enjoy!

- Jacqueline Bodnar

Here are pictures from our hike at Orlando Wetlands Park: