FLORIDA PLACE TO EXPLORE
Secret Woods Nature Center
Broward County · South Florida & the Keys
Fifty-six acres on the New River, named Florida's first urban wilderness area in 1978.
ABOUT THIS PLACE
Secret Woods covers 56 acres beside the New River at Dania Beach, and in 1978 it was designated the first urban wilderness area in Florida. Broward County opened it as its first nature center in 1979 and still runs it. The habitats are cypress strand and mangrove, with uplands of tropical hammock, and all three mangroves grow here, white, black and red. The trails are the Laurel Oak, which is the way into the system, the New River Trail, the Pollinator Pathway on a boardwalk over limestone karst, and the Shady Grove loop back to the parking. Together they come to about a mile and a half at present, lengthened from 1.1 miles by construction work. The nature center building is closed, with a temporary one in the parking area and a new manatee observation deck being built. Giant land crabs live here. They move in numbers after heavy rain, which is the thing regular visitors watch for. Being the first urban wilderness area the state ever designated makes this ground a marker as much as a park, and it is worth remembering that it sits between an interstate and an airport
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