Paynes Prairie Preserve

We stayed at this park several times and always enjoyed it. It has a few things that make it unique for central Florida.

One is the fact that there are herds of wild buffalo and horses in the park. During February each year you can also spot thousands of migrating Sand Cranes.

There is a large lake that disappears periodically. It can be there one day and gone the next. There is a film at the visitor center that tells about it. Evidently there is some kind of sinkhole underneath that sometimes swallows all the water and leaves the fish high and dry. The prairie is unusual for Florida and is very pretty with many different colors or browns and rusts.

You can look out over the prairie on the viewing station. That is where we spotted the buffalo and wild horses. They are normally a long way away, but this one time they came up right below the visitor center. You can hike in the prairie and that day we were glad we weren’t hiking that trail because that is exactly the same trail they were on. They are BIG and there were a lot of them. We have never been lucky enough to see them up close since then.