Myakka River State Park currently has a $5 per carload fee, but is well worth it as you can spend a whole day exploring its many features. These features, however, may include such things as swamped jungle trails, alligators, wild boar, pouring rain, hot open savannahs, and myriads of mosquitos, so please choose your season carefully so as not to feel tempted to curse us out! We lucked out with a particularly glorious cool windy day in January, so we think that December through March is probably your best bet for attempting this hike. You can also camp at one of several backcountry campsites, if you pay the extra fee and make arrangements ahead of time with the rangers. The park is located near Sarasota, FL, some 9 miles east of I-75 on route 72.

In addition to canoeing, biking and horseback riding trails, this park boasts 3 interlocked short backpacking loops. On the far end of the shortest (c. 10mi) of the backpacking loops (that's halfway around or about 5 miles in), go 85 steps east from the Bee Island campsite turn off sign to find a second sign. This second FT Bee Island sign, a white diamond with black letters, marks the indistinct blue blazed side trail to a historic site roughly 275 steps to the south. Find and follow the concrete cattle watering trough westward about 10 paces to the middle of a palm tree grove. From the northwest side of the concrete foundation, examine the northwest corner of the square, flat concrete slab where it touches the base of the palm tree in the center of the grove. Remove a few pieces of bark and a small carefully placed piece of concrete, noting its placement so you can jam it back in the same way. Find your honey stuck in its hive shaped jar tucked under the concrete slab and watch your nose!

10 Feb 06 - We have heard that this box is gone:
"Sometime ago they [the caretakers] found the box open and wet on the ground by the picnic table. They left it on the table for awhile even though it was empty. Then they tossed it. A few days later the logbook appeared at the table and had been soaked beyond recovery. They didn't know what it was and did not try to dry it out and it got tossed."

To find this letterbox you need to locate the Big Cypress Bend Boardwalk about 7 miles west of the Rt. 29, Everglades City, junction with Rt. 41 in Everglades City, Florida.

As you walk into the lush subtropical preserve a short distance from the small parking area on the north side of the highway, there is a sign about Black Bears just west of the start of the boardwalk and just north of a picnic table. Look behind the sign a few steps southwesterly for a nearby palm tree. Find the box tucked into the palm tree in a nest around back at eye level.

Be sure to explore the boardwalk all the way to the end. We have seen alligators there every time we have visited!

Reported found Sep 5, 2005

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