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A Walk Around Deer Creek
A Walk Around Deer Creek, A Great Place To Live In Deerfield Beach, Florida
Welcome friend. I am pleased that you decided to come and join me on a walk around Deer Creek, and I hope you enjoy your visit.
A walk around the neighborhood where you live often provides a completely different view of the surroundings than if you just drive through in a car. Walking is not only good for helping to keep you fit, it enables you to see the area in much greater detail, to admire the beauty, the houses, flora and fauna, and also to meet more of your neighbors.
Deer Creek Country Club is a community on the west side of Deerfield Beach in South Florida. Deerfield Beach is a city on the Atlantic Ocean, at the northern side of Broward County where it meets Palm Beach County.
I have been fortunate to live in Deer Creek for almost two years, and it's really a great place to live, especially if you want somewhere that is relatively quite, and safe.
Deer Creek Country Club consists of a number of private homes, town houses, and condominiums. I live in one of the condominiums, on the seventh floor of a tower, that overlooks the golf course. You couldn't want for a better view, and with many of the residents being retired or snowbirds (from Canada or the Northeastern USA, they migrate south to spend the winters in Florida), it's fairly quiet too.
This lens also features some of the communities that make up the Deer Creek Country Club, including the Deer Creek Golf Club, the Villas D'Este and The Lakes at Deer Creek. You will also find a number of photographs of the local flora and fauna in Deer Creek, in particular the birds, shrubs and trees.
I like to try to keep fit, and one way I do this is to take a morning walk around the lake and golf course. This is the story of my morning walks, in photographs from this pretty community in South Florida.
DEER CREEK ON GOOGLE MAPS
MY MORNING WALK
Since I lost my job in mid February 2009, I decided to that I needed to make sure that I took good care of myself, and having the time to devote to that, no longer having to get up early and head off to an office, I now have the time.
Having reached my 50's, I need to try and keep fit, and besides that, spending the whole day working on the laptop, either writing and promoting articles or job hunting, I need to make sure that I get some exercise, otherwise I will soon become stagnant, stiff, and almost certainly put on weight.
One great way for me to get some exercise is to take a morning walk around the lake and golf course. Taking a morning walk really helps me to wake up, clear my head, and start the day right.
My walk goes around "the loop", which takes me past 5 lakes, parts of the golf course, a number of nice homes, and some picturesque tropical trees and plants. There are also a variety of birds (Blue Herons, Cormorants, Swans, Egrets, Muscovy Ducks, Egyptian Geese, Mockingbirds) and other creatures (Turtles, Iguanas, Raccoons, Groundhogs, Possums), so the walk is always interesting and different every time.
However 21st May 2009 wasn't a good day for my walk. On that day it was a case of rain rain torrential rain... I very luckily timed my morning walk just right, because I hadn't been back half an hour when the heavens opened and it was like a monsoon with driving rain. I think we must have had a good 3 inches in a short time. You can read about the floods and see the photos on my blog.
MAP OF MY WALK - This is a map showing the route I take on my morning walk. You can see all the lakes I pass, and it's off the beaten track so usually nice and
THE VIEW FROM THE CONDO - Living on the 7th floor, I get a great view over one of the lakes and the golf course. A walk around the block is 2 1/4 miles.
FIRST STEPS - My day usually starts with a large glass of Orange Juice, a quick check of my email and web sites, a chat with my fiancée and then my walk.
Around the building and across the main road that runs through the community.
I CAN'T LEAVE FOR MY WALK - Without my trusty MP3 player. Listening to my favorite music helps me clear my head, and I enjoy pacing myself to different rhythms.
I enjoy a lot of music, from Classic Rock, to Latin (Salsa, Merengue, Bachata), Country etc.
I also really like Premiata Forneria Marconi, an Italian Progressive Rock band, and have several of their tracks in my playlist at any time.
AROUND THE LAKE - My walk starts up the east side of the lake on the north side of the condo. It's usually quiet, with a nice view of homes and trees.
A flotilla of three white ducks on the lake.
And a view across the lake back towards home.
THE NORTHEAST SIDE OF THE LOOP - Winding around to the left, I walk past more nice houses
And across a bridge over a canal
Across the bridge we come to the Villas On The Green, one of the developments that forms Deer Creek.
Then the road winds around to the left some more, to the north side of the golf course.
THE NORTH SIDE OF THE LOOP - On the north side of the lake the road crosses through the golf course. This is a shot looking north up the fairway.
And continuing along the road
Another fairway to the south. We had almost no rain for more than a month, but today started with a thunderstorm and torrential rain.
A couple of Muscovy Ducks. There are dozens (maybe hundreds) in the area. They think they own the place.
And finally we reach the western end of the golf course.
VILLA D'ESTE - As we continue up the road, we come to more nice homes on the left, and the upmarket Villa D'Este on the right.
Villa D'Este has nicely landscaped walls, an impressive entry and Mediterranean styled bridge.
And to the south, opposite Villa D'Este, more houses and another lake.
THE LAKES AT DEER CREEK - Following on, with Villa D'Este still on our right, on the left we have "The Lakes", another housing development.
A number of the houses have nicely landscaped gardens.
And the oak trees here provide some much needed shade from the sun.
There is always something different to see on the lakes. Today this Anhinga was watching for fish.
RIVER PARK - A little further along the road we come to River Park, a small garden set with plants to attract butterfiles etc.
Yet another section of lake frontage. This is such a scenic walk don't you think?
THE NORTHWEST SIDE OF THE LOOP - The road continues with houses on the left and right.
And an enclosed swimming pool on the left, with some colorful plants.
Another very impressive house.
And some more nice colors.
THE WEST SIDE OF THE LOOP - The western side of the loop has several developments of condominiums on the right, and three points where the road borders a large
The fountain is about the halfway point of the walk, but don't worry we are 3/4 through the photos.
I always stop here to see if there are any bananas growing. The owners don't seem to take much care of it. Sometimes there are several bunches.
THE SOUTHWEST SIDE OF THE LOOP - Continuing down the road, you pass more of the large lake, lots of birds, turtles, fish jumping, and the occasional iguana.
This area has some nice vegetation and landscaped beds.
And more great views of the lake.
This is a point where you can see right through the lake to home. It's also open, and if I am lucky, a nice cool breeze blows through and cools me off.
THE LOWER SOUTHWEST SIDE OF THE LOOP
Another nice colorful landscaped garden.
A nice view of The Forum - more of this later.
The owners of this house have a collection of hanging baskets on the trees.
Another great view of The Forum
And finally we reach Country Club Blvd which runs along the south side of the loop.
SOUTH SIDE OF THE LOOP - THE LAST LEG - The south side of the loop has a lot more trees, mostly a mix of Oaks, Palms and Ficus, and provides a lot more shade.
THE FORUM AT DEER CREEK - I couldn't complete the tour without a mention of The Forum, which is a set of impressive pink towers that can be seen from afar.
The Forum at Deer Creek is a Five Star Independent Full-Service Retirement Community with Independent Living, Assisted Living and Skilled Nursing in the heart of Deerfield Beach.
I think when it comes time to think about a sheltered living facility, there are worse places you could end up.
CONTINUING ALONG THE SOUTH SIDE - The first time I walked along here I saw three baby raccoons. They allowed me to come within two feet of them.
Another Anhinga that flew into a tree as I approached and was looking for fish.
One of the many Ibis's that you see around here. Sometimes you can see as many as 50 together.
DEER CREEK GOLF CLUB - The clubhouse for Deer Creek Golf Club is halfway along the south side of Country Club Blvd.
Deer Creek Golf Club is a public 18-hole Championship course located in southeast Florida between Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, just five miles from the Atlantic Ocean, and is noted for its exceptional course conditions and country club amenities.
Golfers can enjoy a championship course, Key-West style clubhouse, fully stocked golf pro shop, comfortable locker rooms, driving range, and practice putting and chipping greens.
Deer Creek Golf Club is also known for it's luxurious banquet facilities, which are ideal for weddings and parties of any kind.
There is a small lake outside the restaurant at the Golf Club with an island and Ficus trees in the middle.
The lake and island make a nice background for the diners on the patio, and also for wedding photographs.
THE FINAL STRETCH - Along the edge of the golf course again on the last leg of our journey. You can see how much it rained this morning.
Up and over the bridge over the canal.
HOME IS IN SIGHT - Finally on the last leg, I can see home at last.
The Bottle Brush trees are coming into bloom.
Landscaped vegetation at the entrance of the condominiums.
A Hibiscus in bloom.
I love the shape of this tree.
Finally, up the six flights of stairs, two at a time, then I stop to cool off on the catwalk. Sometimes after my walk I head straight down to the pool for a re
Background To My Daily Walk
I thought I would add this section to fill in some gaps in the information about my walk and to maybe answer some questions that any visitors might have.
The idea for this page came about a month ago, when I started to write articles about my daily walks on My Blog. I wanted to take some photographs to complement the blog entries, and then Jaguar Julie suggested that this would be a good idea for a web page. Adding a few photographs to a blog posting is one thing, but to make a whole page about my daily walk required a lot more in my opinion, and so the idea was born.
Firstly, YES I know it's a long page (and then some). I thought that I had taken about 40 or 50 photographs on my walk. I returned to find it was actually 122! I found it hard to whittle the number of photos down too much without losing some of the sights that I wanted to show, so I decided to just include about 80 of them, thinking that any reader that does enjoy this lens will hopefully spend the time looking at all of them, or maybe bookmark the lens and return to look at the photos on installments.
I usually take my walk between 7:30am and 8:30am, and the previous evening I had decided that tomorrow would be the day to take the camera with me. It had hardly rained here in months and everywhere has been very dry, however I woke up the next morning at 5:30am to the CRASH BOOM FLASH of a tremendous thunderstorm.
This went on for a long while, then it appeared to clear up, so I got ready to head out for my walk. The next thing I heard was rain pounding on the roof, so I had to wait until 10am to head out of the door, by which time the sun was fairly high in the sky and the temperature was already in the 80's (25C).
One thing I usually do before I take my walk is to make a mug of Green Tea, so that this can cool down ready for me to prepare my favorite refreshing drink, Iced Green Tea With Lime. Please click on the link to read about this great healthy drink.
If you enjoyed this collection of photographs, and I hope you did, you can read more about my daily walks on my blog with the following posts: An Early Morning Walk, My Daily Walk and In A Word - Blisters.
Many thanks to Evelyn Saenz for correcting me on some of the wildlife around the lake. I thought the Anhinga was a Cormorant. You can tell by the beak apparently. The Anhinga has a pointed beak and spears the fish to kill it. A cormorant has a hooked bill. I also stand corrected in that the Ibis is an Egret. The Egret has a straight shorter bill and the Ibis has a longer curved bill. It's always helpful to be corrected and to learn something more. Thanks Evelyn.
I would also like to thank Kim Giancaterino for mentoring me on this and my other recent travel lenses. Both Kim and Jaguar Julie have been a great help in turning an idea into what I hope will be a very successful lens.
