Very early start and headed back to Miami airport (about 4 hours drive), it was lovely and cool for travelling. We returned the rental car and managed to get away with where the black vultures have pulled the soft rubber off the roof (from our trip to the Everglades).

Both feeling very tired and exhausted from travelling, we arrived late afternoon in our hotel (Temptation Resort Spa in Cancun). It’s an all inclusive hotel and we have a lovely ocean view from our room. Time zone is also an hour behind Florida.

Both woke up late with hangovers but managed to get out for our last day in Key West. We went on the Conch train tour which was toured most of the old town.

Afterwards, we continued to wonder around and took more photos at Mallory square, where we also had dinner watching the sunset.

Got up early for big game fishing, had to be there for 7.30am! There were 6 of us fishing onboard and Li was the only girl. It was all set up with bait on the lines for us, we took it in turns to reel in the catch when the bait was taken. Li caught a large barracuda (Tony helped her to reel it in) and Tony caught something smaller than the bait we were using. We were both sick; water was choppy as can be.

We went back to the hotel and slept as we both were exhausted; later we went out for some food and drink. We drank in Fogerty’s which is a really nice restaurant/bar; then proceeded on to a couple more bars and got extremely tipsy.

Got up late as the downstairs neighbours were very rowdy in the middle of the night; it sounded like the bloke trashed the room.

Went to Fort Taylor National Park for some snorkelling but found it was too windy. We decided to lounge on the beach instead. Spent several hours on the beach in the end and Tony did some snorkelling as the wind died.

Found a bar with live music and rested there for a couple hours, Li managed to get 2 for 1 margaritas and drank 6!! She was completely off her trolley by the time we left.

Our next stop is Key West, a few hours drive from Florida City. We got to our hotel and were told we were parked the wrong way on the road and will definitely get a ticket if we didn’t turn the right way round; Tony not impressed by this “free country”…..you can’t even park the direction you want!
We explored the main part of the town (Duval Street) and we stumbled on a bed race going on, lots of weird inventions and the British one got booed on the most.

We found an outdoor restaurant with water mist sprays; very cooling which was welcoming as it was very hot here.

Joined the sunset party in Mallory Square, saw some fantastic large fancy boats and lots of entertainment.

Had American waffles and syrup for breakfast; before we set off in to the Everglades National Park. We did the Anhinga trail with a ranger and saw alligators, anhingas, herons and Tony saw a green heron catching a fish.

We got back to our car after the trail and noticed rubber bits all over the windscreen wipers and bonnet; it turns out that the black vultures around have attacked it for the soft rubber seal of the roof!! As you can imagine, we were both not happy about it as it’s a rental car probably costing a couple thousand pounds worth of damage, but there is nothing we can do about it. We are hoping the rental people won’t notice!

Headed on to Biscayne National Park; it turns out is a national park by the sea so very little to do unless you have a boat or go on a boat trip. Unfortunately we missed the boat tour so we walked around the boardwalk instead. Saw quite a few people fishing; some fishing for their own bait which was unusual to see.

We got up late and managed to get some breakfast. We ventured in to the Everglades National Park and headed down to Flamingo which is almost the most southern point in the park. We visited a few trails and went on a boat tour in Flamingo. Tony managed to get lots of photos on this boat tour of Ospreys, crocodiles and the general landscape.

Thanks to our mosquito head nets, we managed to avoid getting eaten alive by the nasty mossies. Also we did spray ourselves from head to toe with Deet (ranging from 40% to 100%). Call us paranoid but the size of the mosquitoes here are the size of our blue bottles.

Back in Flamingo marina; Tony managed to photograph vultures near a fishing cleaning hut and Osprey nests dotted around the port on high places.

Checked out of our hotel, Tony hired a nice convertible silver Chrysler for the rest of our trip in Florida. It took nearly 2 hours to drive down to the Everglades; we found a visitor centre which an old lady called M.C was ever so helpful.

By the time we checked in to our hotel, we had been sunburnt on our arms and neck from just travelling in the car; the sun was ever so hot. After plying on high factor sun cream and covered up, we made our way to the Everglades Alligator Farm.

We saw lots of alligators, crocodiles and snakes. We went on an air boat, the noise from the propellers were ever so noisy. There were several shows on showing snakes and alligators; we both got an opportunity to hold and touch them.

Decided to stop off at Walmart for a few items, it makes Tesco look like a corner shop. We picked up things including snorkelling equipment, 100% deet sprays, mosquito head covers and even a life jacket for Li!!

Started with brunch in Jerry’s Famous Deli (proper American diner open 24 hours). It was something like you see in an American sitcom, the menu was enormous and there was so much choice. Would recommend the place but the service wasn’t great.

Stayed out all day, we relaxed on the beach and even got in to the water. We found an Irish pub called ‘Finnegans’ and a table to perch for several hours. We had oysters, Alaskan crab claws and stonecrab claws with a nice bottle of Californian Champagne. Followed by margaritas for Li and beer for Tony!!

On the way home, we came across a few stands and we both got a henna tattoo done. Tony got a Chinese Tiger character on his shoulder and Li got the Chinese Rabbit character on her ankle. We also came across a man painting on mirror glass slates, his work was very impressive and we brought a couple pieces.

Both decided to relax on the beach today; we got take away lunch from Joe’s Stonecrab restaurant (recommended from our guide book) which is only open 6 months a year. It cost over $60 for 5 claws, crab roll and some chicken wings (very nice crab claws though) We hired a couple loungers on the beach and relaxed, thankfully it was not an extremely hot day.

For dinner, we went to a very posh restaurant called ‘Tantra’; as you walk in to the restaurant you step on real grass in the entrance in to the dining area. The food was excellent and the service was faultless. They had scallops the size of wine glass rim (at least 8 times bigger than the standard king scallops in England).