Poinciana’s Wild Side: Lake Marion Creek and Catfish Creek
Thousands of acres of state and conservation land press against the subdivisions — the Lake Marion Creek WMA and the Allen David Broussard Catfish Creek Preserve.
2 minute read
Poinciana’s wild side is not a park department brochure. It is thousands of acres of state and conservation land pressing against the subdivisions — flatwoods, scrub, cypress swamp and open water that were here long before the first village plat in 1972. For residents, it is the community’s second geography: the one without parkways. Here are its three great pieces, from our Poinciana hub.
Lake Marion Creek Wildlife Management Area
East of Lake Marion, the Lake Marion Creek Wildlife Management Area protects more than 8,000 acres of pine flatwoods, hilly scrub and cypress swamp, with miles of hiking trails, primitive camping and seasonal hunting. The Huckleberry Island Trail is the sampler: flatwoods giving way to swamp in a single walk, with the bird list — sandhill cranes, wood storks, bald eagles among the regulars — doing the narration. It is managed wild land, not a landscaped park, and it asks visitors to come prepared; that roughness is the point.
Catfish Creek and the Disney Wilderness Preserve
Two preserves complete the ring, both at Poinciana’s edges and labelled as such. Allen David Broussard Catfish Creek Preserve State Park, southeast toward Haines City, protects some of the rarest scrub habitat in Florida — high, dry, ancient dune country above Lake Pierce. To the north, The Nature Conservancy’s Disney Wilderness Preserve, at the headwaters of the Everglades system near the Kissimmee line, runs boardwalk and trail through cypress swamp, freshwater marsh and oak hammock. Either makes a full day; together with Lake Marion Creek they mean a Poinciana resident can breakfast at home and be standing in three different wild Floridas by lunch.
The local rule
Go early, carry water, and read each preserve’s own site for access and seasonal rules before you set out — hunting seasons and trail conditions change what is open. Finish the day back on Cypress Parkway with the corridor in our where-to-eat guide, and read our Lake Marion piece for the water that ties it all together. The ranked outdoor attractions of the wider region are on the Top Spots Map; Poinciana’s wild acres need no ranking. They are the oldest thing here.
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