Palm City, quiet, riverside and inland

The other side of the river

Palm City is the west bank of the St. Lucie, joined to Stuart by two bridges and a world apart in pace. It is where the county’s golf courses, riding stables and newer neighbourhoods are, laid out along canals that run back to the river. There is no downtown to speak of; the attractions are the water and the land behind it. The South Fork of the St. Lucie winds south from here through a preserve that is the best paddling on the coast: narrow, shaded and slow.

The lock and the waterway

West of town the St. Lucie Canal leaves the river for Lake Okeechobee, and the St. Lucie Lock and Dam lifts boats fourteen feet on their way across the state to the Gulf. The Army Corps of Engineers runs a campground and a small park beside it where you can watch the lock cycle, picnic under the oaks and fish below the spillway, and the manatees gather in the warm water there in winter.

The canal is also the valve that releases lake water into the estuary after heavy rain. When it opens, the river turns brown and the fishing moves to the inlet; the ocean beaches are never affected.

What to do here

Golf is the obvious answer: the public course in the pines at the edge of town is the cheapest round on the coast, and the private club on the river is the hardest to get onto. The Saturday market fills a park by the bridge with produce, bread and plants. Halpatiokee Regional Park on the South Fork has trails, a canoe launch and a mountain-bike loop that is the only real hill for forty miles. Dinner is in Stuart, ten minutes across the bridge. The riding stables along the canals take beginners out on the trails in winter, and the canal banks themselves are the flattest cycling in the county.

Getting here

The Palm City Bridge and the Veterans Memorial Bridge both cross from Stuart, and the Florida Turnpike exit is here too, which makes Palm City the fastest way in from Orlando and the west. There are no beaches; the nearest sand is Stuart Beach, twenty minutes away.