Adventure

Learn all about South Walton's flora and fauna on a hike with nature guide Snookie Parrish along the nature trail at Alys Beach, Florida.

The inaugural South Walton Adventure Run was an adventure-filled weekend for adults and kids. The event, sponsored by SoWal.com, challenged runners from every ability at beautiful Topsail Hill Preserve State Park. 

The fun masquerade ball was Friday night. Saturday’s 1 mile kid run was a scaled down version of the 5k, with obstacles and pirates – so runners had to guard their booty in order to win prizes! There were different age brackets for this event.

Deer Lake State Park is a 1,920 acre park which shares its name with the coastal dune lake within its boundaries. Coastal dune lakes are extremely rare worldwide and in the United States they occur only along the Gulf Coast.

From a misty morning sunrise to a serene golden sunset on Peach Creek Bayou. Mullet leap and Redfish tail, from the kayak Largemouth Bass are hooked. An Osprey (fish eagle) chirps and chases an American Bald Eagle three times his size into the bough of a Longleaf Pine. Pelicans and migrating Mallards dive and feed. Fishermen motor out for a day of trout fishing on the Choctawhatchee (chock-tuh-hatch-ee) Bay.

It was the warm and lazy last day of 2011, and it was a good one, living the dream. Summer never really ended that year.
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What better way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon than kayak fishing on the calm waters of one of South Walton's hidden gems.

Peach Creek flows north from the wetlands of Point Washington State Forest, on the north side of Seagrove Beach, Florida. It's just a short distance from the Gulf of Mexico and Scenic Highway 30A.

What begins as a trickle, widens to SoWal's largest freshwater creek, opening up to a beautiful bayou flowing into the Intracoastal Waterway and the Choctawhatchee (Chock-tuh-hatch-ee) Bay.

October may be the most enjoyable month in SoWal and the South Walton Community Council's Back to Nature Festival is a treasured event every year. It kicked off Friday, October 14, 2011 with a party at Hibiscus House in Grayton Beach with food, friends, and live music from Chris Alvarado.

Saturday October 15, 2011 featured a slew of outdoor events all over SoWal. Perfect weather set the stage for coordinated activities at Grayton Beach State Park and Seaside with fun for kids, education, animals, and hands-on exhibits from local nature and wildlife experts.

For about two decades or more, metal Chicken Coops have been used by fishermen along the Florida Panhandle as artificial reef material to attract fish. In earlier years automobiles, old boats and small airplanes were used but their environmental compatibility was questioned and they were banned. The large metal chicken coops replaced those earlier materials and were quickly adopted as the fish attracting devices (FADS) of choice.

Our latest segment highlighting coastal dune lakes in SoWal  features YOLO (stand up paddle boarding) and Walco Eco Tours on Western Lake.
Production by Elam Stoltzfus of Live Oak Production Group continues on a full-length documentary about coastal dune lakes for an international PBS audience.