12th Day - Aransas National Wildlife Refuge

Southwest Texas Vacation - 12th Day 

Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, 7 May 2022

Left the RV a little late - about 11:30am.  Took the Port Aransas Ferry across.  It's quite efficient!  We were laughing because EVERYTHING says the wait time is 15 minutes.  Literally everything - the website, the road signs, the traffic website, etc.  But we had practically no wait time.  Pulled straight onto the ferry & we were across in about 10 minutes.  The most amazing thing is that is is totally free!  Both ways.  Don't understand, but there is no charge, no matter how big you are.  You can go across in a vehicle weighing up to 80,000 lbs & no charge.  They would allow you to get out of your vehicle, but we saw no reason too, no amenities on the boat, you would just be standing on the deck & it was hot!  Anyway, it was a fun experience.  They run up to 6 ferries a day as needed for traffic.  On the way from the ferry on the other side, there were at least 100 cars in line.  I suspect they had MORE that 15 minutes wait!!

It was an easy drive to the NWR, but took about an hour and a half. Took a little longer because there was road construction (repaving) on the little FM road about 15 minutes before we got there. Annoying, but what can you do??

I had decided I wanted to do all the listed stops along the 16 mile road (including the 9 mile Auto Loop), so we started out that way.  First stop was the Rail Trail.  It was listed as .5 miles along the Tomas Slough - making 1 mile total as it wasn't a loop.  It was a grassy little trail with bushes, low trees & cat tails.  Hoping to see any birds or alligators in the slough, but didn't see anything.  Heard a few birds twittering, but nothing in the water or along the shore of the swampy looking slough.  When we got to the end of the trail, we saw that it connected with the next trail, Heron Flats trail & there was a young couple coming from the trees like they were finishing up.  We asked them if this was a loop, but they said they had only walked a short distance & were covered in mosquitos (they were still swatting at them).  We didn't have any insect spray, so we decided to skip that section & headed back to our Jeep.

There were several deer on the grass in front of the Headquarters building.  They didn't seem particularly worried about us, they were watchful, but not skittish.  There is a huge new building going up next to the headquarters.  It will be a gorgeous Visitor's Center with glass viewing & observation platforms & exhibits.  Due to the construction, the roads are currently rerouted, so we didn't get to stop at the first Alligator observation platform.  

The next stop was Heron Flats Trail & Observation platform.  It connected with the end of the Rail Trail, but this end is more out in the open, so no worries about mosquitos.  The observation deck gave us views over some salt water flats all the way out to San Antonio Bay.  Not many folks around today, only one other couple on the deck.  The main species we were looking for was the Whooping Crane.  We could see lots of big birds in the distance, but they were Great Blue Herons & Great Egrets.  Lots of terns around too.

 

We took the Heron Trail along the slough until it got to the heavy brushy area.  No mosquitos on the part we were walking on.  Ran into the young couple again, they had found an alligator.  I tried to get pictures, but it ducked under as soon as I started aiming it's way!  It was pretty big - probably 4' or so.  They turned around & left, but we continued almost a mile.  Heard splashing next to us in the bushes.  When we got to a small opening, we could see several small alligators, about a foot long.  They were very pretty - had yellow splotches on them.  Saw the mother in the water near them, again, I could not get pictures!  I'm just not good at this!  They are too fast & I can't see the telephone screen well enough.  We were also trying to get closer to the big birds out on the salt flats, definitely no Whooping Cranes, darn it!

We skipped the Songbird Loop trail (.1 mile) - it looked like a Mosquito Sanctuary.  Went on to the picnic area & stopped for our snack of nuts & Cheezit's.   Then a short walk at the Oak Sanctuary Trail (.1 mile).  This love 500 year old Oak has been witness to the entire history of the United States so far.  Pretty amazing.  Wish it could talk.  It's still healthy & strong.  It's on the shores of the San Antonio Bay, but we didn't hang around long as the mosquitos quickly started to swarm!!!

We stopped at the Dagger Point Trail (1 mile), but gave up at the start due to mosquitos.  Back to the Jeep & on to the next.  Enroute, we stopped to look out at a family of White Ibis calmly feeding.  A car behind us stopped to look at something, so when they passed us a few minutes later, we backed up to see what they were looking at & got a nice look at the medium sized alligator!  Finally a picture!!!!

The short walk to the James Lake (.1 mile) viewing platform gave us a few more ducks & lots of frogs!  Ran into the couple from the Heron Trail platform & they hadn't seen anything except frogs!  They had missed all the alligators!  Oh well.  We were a little luckier than they were!

The last stop of the day was Big Tree Trail (.7 miles).  It was by far the best.  It included 2 Observation towers (20' and 40') and a nice long boardwalk to the edge of San Antonio Bay.  We went up the ramp to the 20' Observation deck first.  There are no stairs to make it fully accessible to wheel chairs.  That's thoughtful!  Didn't see much but scenery, but there was a breeze, so it felt pretty good.

Then we followed the boardwalk out to the Bay. There were fishermen out there & we chatted with one of them a bit. He had seen a big alligator the day before, so he was a bit leery of wading out too deep. He was fishing with a net.

We retraced our steps to climb the 40' tower. There was a young family there too, I think they were speaking Chinese,  I volunteered to take a picture of the whole group for them.  They were pleased.  Again, we didn't really see anything much except nice scenery, but it was pleasant & a highlight of the visit.

We followed the rest of the loop to leave the park.  It was funny listening to the GPS because she was constantly telling us to turn on non-existent roads.   She was obviously very confused.  We suspect there would normally be more to see, because the area should have been swampy, but everything was dry & a lot of plant life was almost dead.  The drought is effecting this area also!!

We expected the GPS to route us home a different way, but she advised us to take the ferry again.  We were a little worried because of the line we saw before, but once again, we drove straight onto the ferry & crossed over in less than 10 minutes.  We were behind a couple of motorcycles, they seemed to be really enjoying themselves.  It was a lovely day & despite the mosquitos, we were pleased with the visit.  Tomorrow we're driving to South Padre Island!!!