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It may be within spitting distance of Walt Disney World, yet Kissimmee is a world apart. Gary Noakes finds wilderness and cosmic adventures on the doorstep of the theme park capital.
A Smart Alec kid versus someone who’s flown the Space Shuttle seven times can have only one winner.
Our lunch at the Kennedy Space Center with astronaut Jerry Ross ends with a question-and-answer session that prompts a young boy to ask: “Did you ever see a UFO?” Ross replies a little wearily that he’s seen no UFOs or any green men with TV antennae sticking out of their heads.
The boy, however, still has the microphone and retorts wryly: “Or is that what the government wants us to believe?”. This earns laughter and applause.
I have my own Smart Alec question prepared: “How many times have you been asked how you go to the toilet in space?” Then: “So how do you?” But Ross has already covered this in his film about life onboard Atlantis (the secret to avoiding floaters is Velcro leg straps and a vacuum system).
Earlier, we stood beneath the actual spacecraft that Ross flew.
It’s a humbling moment that puts my flippant query into perspective, as the reptile-like skin of Atlantis’s underbelly is scorched from re-entry and, as we learn, even the loss of one protective tile could have meant disaster. Nearby, there is a gallery of remembrance to the crews of Challenger and Columbia, who weren’t so lucky.
The Space Center at Cape Canaveral doubles as a working launch site for satellites and a visitor attraction and it’s a day or two very well spent. There aren’t many places on earth where you can get up close to rockets. The history of the space race is well told without being gung-ho, while the interactive experiences, including sitting in an original control centre complete with launch vibrations, are first rate.
Cape Canaveral was chosen for its remoteness and in Florida, despite appearances, there’s a lot of remoteness. I’ll be honest: I’d previously found the Orlando area bland – a landscape of big hotels, condos and motorways – but I’m in Kissimmee to get a taste of the other side of this vast state. Kissimmee is small-town America slap bang in the middle of everywhere you want to go, but the countryside around it gives glimpses of the real Florida –dense vegetation, swamp and isolated clusters of clapboard houses that have seen better days.
To get the bigger picture, I always head to a high point to survey the landscape, but that’s not easy in Florida as it’s mostly sea level. The solution, a hot air balloon, finds me standing in a field one morning as the chilly (for Florida) winter night gives way to dawn. We spend 30 minutes helping the crew to unfold the envelope, then stand back as it fills with air. But just as we’re told to climb in, an unseasonal gust means the crew struggle to stop the basket tipping and the chief pilot, a veteran of 30 years, orders all flights to be abandoned. Disappointed, we head back to breakfast.
Next morning, there are no lift-off problems and a gentle ascent in a gorgeous still dawn takes us to 1,400ft before a gradual fall to our 400ft cruising height. During the 9.5-mile journey, I see little but swamp and pine scrub (the two dominant ecosystems) in all directions, covered by a giant silver fan of diffuse sunlight. We skim the canopy of Southern Pine trees, spy a few deer, orange groves and some eagles circling numerous waterways, and it’s not until close to landing that the peak of Everest at Disney’s Animal Kingdom intrudes through the mist.
The balloon ride whets my appetite for the wilderness, but first a stop at Osceola County’s excellent museum fills gaps in my knowledge. Here, I learn that the area was home to the original cattlemen (“cowboys” is a derogatory term, apparently), who regarded their Texan cousins as “weak weeds” because the Florida swamp was so inhospitable. Their legacy means that today Kissimmee’s Silver Spurs Rodeo is the largest east of the Mississippi.
Then there are those alligators: Florida has 2.5 million of them and there are likely to be some in every stretch of water you see. Sometimes they’re on the golf course; sometimes they have to be fished out of the pool. Despite appearances, most are small and won’t attack humans. In fact, as I learned at Gatorland, the original Florida theme park (opened in 1949), more people are fatally attacked by those deceptively doe-eyed deer each year.
We take to the water in search of alligators, but our airboat ride is thwarted by the cold and we see only one small gator, curled in a reed bed. The creatures’ cold-bloodedness means they submerge when the temperature drops, so a night-time cruise will see their red eyes dotting the underwater blackness, while early morning has them emerge to bask in sunlight.
A close-up with a magnificent bald eagle, whose nests can weigh up to two tonnes, compensates us.
The airboat ride is on one of Florida’s myriad lakes, and it’s great, but I decide it’s something pretty much every visitor does. Kayaking along Kissimmee’s Shingle Creek is not so well known, and here I glimpse a turtle dive mid-river, plus egrets and an osprey, while another boat spots an alligator. As the channel narrows, we pick our way around cypress tree roots, their branches draped with Spanish moss. On occasions, the dense canopy is our sunblock. We may only spend an hour there, but I’m definitely in the wilderness.
A marked trail on the river leads south to Lake Toho and on to the Kissimmee River, so it’s possible to kayak and camp for four days and paddle 250 miles south to the Everglades. Now that would be mission accomplished, so maybe next time on my return visit.
See you later, alligator.
