Wildlife drive open during repairs
Kristen Day and her boys Owen, 7, and Dean, 5, poked their heads excitedly through an open window of the family truck as her husband, Jason, brought the bumpy ride on the Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive to a sudden stop.
Off to the right, on the far bank of the Lake Apopka canal, poised in fighting stances — paws raised — were two bobcats. A half dozen more vehicles rolled up to watch the short-tail standoff.
“What a great day,” Jason Day of Ocoee said later Sunday. “We saw a lot.”
Nature-watching on the 11-mile scenic drive likely will improve, thanks to a project to regrade and repair the pothole-pocked path, which reopened just before Christmas after damage and flooding caused by Hurricane Irma but was still showing the after effects of the storm. Meanwhile, on the south side of Lake Apopka, nature lovers again are able to fully enjoy the Oakland Nature Preserve, which also was battered by Irma.
Volunteers cut a ribbon Friday allowing visitors access again to the raised boardwalk through the preserve’s wetlands. The storm toppled trees that broke railings and planks, forcing the closure of the serpentine boardwalk, which winds seven-tenths of a mile to a screened-in pavilion overlooking the lake. It’s a popular place to safely spy gators.
The nonprofit preserve repaired the wooden walkway, constructed in 2002, using $19,000 in insurance proceeds and another $17,000 in donations from the Bond Foundation of Winter Garden, the Central Florida Foundation, the Roper Foundation and private donors who gave to a GoFundme account.
“At this point, everything is open,” managing director Jennifer Hunt said.
As for the Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive, access won’t be affected by the regrading project. The drive will continue to be open Friday, Saturday, Sunday as regrading takes place Monday through Thursday each week, said Teresa Monson, spokeswoman for the St. Johns River Water Management District, the drive’s caretaker.
“The goal is to regrade the roads to improve the slope for drainage,” she said.
Monson said the work, estimated to cost $142,000, will take about five or six weeks. The costliest expense is the purchase and delivery of $90,000 of lime rock for the project.
Flooding during the hurricane eroded the roadway, causing multiple washouts and potholes on the surface.
Each week the road will be cleared of equipment and materials Thursday afternoon to allow public access to the drive Friday morning. The one-way drive, which starts on Lust Road north of Magnolia Park and ends at Jones Avenue on the lake’s northern side, is open from sunrise to an hour before sunset.
“Holy moley,” exclaimed nature photographer Lynn Marie Folts when she spotted, by her estimate, a “ka-jillion” tree swallows feasting on a swarm of flying insects over the lake.
Folts, who spends most weekends at the lake, had been stalking boat-tailed grackles — glossy black songbirds with long tails that make a frequent jeeb-jeeb-jeeb sound. Irma, which plowed through Central Florida on Sept. 11, changed the landscape around the lake when storm water breached some levees, she said.
“The birds and the wildlife … have readjusted,” Folts said.