391 NW Baker Road
Stuart

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Haney Creek Trail is at the same time a very wet and very dry place, but an easy walk everywhere you might wander. The park, run by the city of Stuart, has more than two miles of trails that loop through scrub, flatwoods, wet prairies and around several manmade ponds. The north trail is at first hard-surfaced of a sort, gravel packed into the soil, but transitions into natural surface for most of its length. It's wide, well marked and well maintained.

There are plenty of interpretive signs along the way, explaining the significance of what you're looking at. At certain points, there are cut-outs for viewing special habitat, such as the wet prairie shown in the third photo to the left. We saw few birds during our visit but did come across the gopher tortoise seen at the top, and plenty of wildflowers, including the endangered large-flowered rosemary and the rare hat pins and lindenleaf rosemallow. The one bird we positively IDed was a red-bellied woodpecker.

Haney Creek Trail offers planty of parking, a restroom and drinking water. There is an informational kiosk at the entrance, complete with a map of the trails. Haney Creek is also part dog park — there are two enclosures for our furry friends to run free — and they are permitted on the trails as long as they're leashed and their owners clean up after them.