Fairchild Oak — Attraction in Florida

This review is for people like me, who are into discovering longer hiking trails and appreciate reviews with details about the trails. Feel free to reference the official park map alongside this review. The Fairchild Oak parking lot is adequate; it parks probably 20-25 cars. Restrooms were in good shape. When you arrive and walk around to find the 2 trailheads, you’ll see what looks like 3 trailheads, but the one on the far left is the trailhead for the Fairchild Oak Hiking trail and the two trail openings to the right are the entrance and exit for the Wahlin Trail. The hiking trail distance between the Fairchild trailhead and the Old Dixie Hwy parking lot is roughly 1.45 miles. The Old Dixie Hwy parking lot is a small “park just off the side of the road” kind of parking with no restrooms. I found information online saying this trail keeps going north until it hits Bulow Woods Trail and then you could reach Bulow Plantation Ruins, but unfortunately you will encounter a point in which you must turn back (around Korona Canal) because portions of the Bulow Woods Trail (beyond Korona Canal) were closed due to storm impacts at the time of this review. The distance between the Old Dixie Hwy parking lot and Korona Canal is roughly 1.13 miles. So the hike from the Fairchild Oak trailhead to Korona Canal and back was roughly 6 miles total. And the Wahlin Trail was really short, but good. We hiked this in January, which means cooler temperatures and less bugs. And it would usually mean less rain and muddy trails, but I will caution hikers that even in the “dry season” prepare to hike short portions of the trails that have roughly 2 inches of mud to get through. We saw small fish, armadillo, and birds throughout the day. Overall, it was a great day in nature and we...

This is an excellent trail. If you begin from the North end of the trail that starts on Walter Boardman Lane, it's less than a mile to the wooden footbridge that crosses the creek. From the Southside (at the Fairchild Oak) it's more like 1.3 Miles to the bridge. That footbridge has the best view of the entire trail because you are literally right in the middle of the creek. However, check the tides before you go, if it's high tide (or not on the low side) the last bit of trail to get to the bridge will be under ankle deep water. I've come at both high tide and low tide. High tide is ankle deep water, low tide is dry with a few muddy spots but nothing too bad. Either way - the view...

It was nice and quiet, not crowded at all when I went on a Tuesday. The hike was peaceful, saw lots of dragonflies, lizards, birds, and a small rattlesnake. It took me about an hour and a half out and back, part of the trail had water across it but not too much that you couldn’t walk through it. Plenty of shade for almost the entire trail so I think it would still be nice in the summer. The Fairchild Oak was absolutely beautiful! Amazing to think the amount of history that tree has been around for. There were picnic tables and bathrooms there, would definitely be a nice place for a picnic. Can’t...