Silver Springs '93

Sunday 4 July 1993. We boarded another coach at what still seemed like a very early time in the morning and were welcomed on board by Charlie, a grizzled white haired courier. As we moved onto the bus a young man beamed at me and said "Hi!". I said "Hi..." back. He turned out to be Jonathan - a trainee courier - and he was by far more interesting than Charlie, whose line in patter was along the lines of, "Well I guess you guys will be in need of a rest now so I'll let you contemplate the back of your eyelids and will be back with you later on..."

We drove through some rather run-down areas to Silver Springs, a mix between an area of outstanding beauty and a wildlife haven and a frequent movie lot. Johnny Weismuller made his Tarzan films here in the 1930s and 1940s. Some of the monkeys used for those films had escaped and there is now a thriving colony of monkeys living in the park. The James Bond film "Live and Let Die" was partly filmed there, and the Tom Cruise film "Legend".

There was a show based on Tarzan and his distinctive call rang out electronically (and somewhat annoyingly after a while!) every 15 or 30 minutes. Mind you... probably not as annoying as Johnny himself got later in life, as once he was in an old folks' home his mind got a bit befuddled, poor chap, and he used to give his Tarzan call several times a day to the great consternation of other befuddled old folks.

The park is a region of outstanding natural beauty. The springs that give it its name are underwater springs and a glass-bottomed boat trip gives you the chance to sit above them and wonder at just how deep down you can see. The water is absolutely crystal clear - about 97% pure I think one of the crew said. There are a few fish, but we only saw tiddlers and, of course, the odd Florida alligator and crocodile. On the dryer bits we saw turtles, raccoons and an assortment of zoo animals that aren't found around these parts normally - unless they came with Tarzan...

Squirrels were running about over the tough and very stubby-bladed grass around the buildings of the park. I was wearing shorts - something the ladies found particularly hilarious... My knees, unused to the idea that they could see and talk to each other drove me mad all day...

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