Secret Woods Nature Center

Saved from development in 1972, Secret Woods opened to the public in 1979 as Broward County’s first nature center.

Its noisy, bustling urban surroundings include major highways and the Fort Lauderdale International Airport.

Archway with park name and people looking at map

Entrance walkway

Under a canopy of mangrove forest and tropical hammock along the New River in Dania Beach, a 1.5 mile hike on its interpretive trails transports you into a very different world.

Two construction projects have altered the usual route through the park, expanding a 1.1 mile walk to 1.5 miles.

The rebuild of the Nature Center hasn’t started yet, but the new Manatee Observation Deck was underway on our visit.

The nature center is closed

Resources

Resources for exploring the area

South Florida Explorers Guide book cover

Hikers Guide to the Sunshine State book cover

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Overview

Location: Dania Beach
Length: 1.5 miles
Trailhead: 26.088625, -80.177516
Address: 2701 W SR 84, Dania Beach
Fees: Free
Restroom: At the trailhead
Land Manager: Broward County
Phone: 954-357-8884

Open 9-5 daily. Gates lock at 5. No pets, fishing, or bicycles. While the nature center remains closed, accessible access to the boardwalk is via the Shady Oak Trail off the park road.

Directions

Secret Woods is along SR 84 just west of the I-95 / I-595 junction and the South Fork of the New River, immediately on the right after you cross the bridge westbound. From Interstate 95, use exit 25 to go west on SR 84 to the park entrance. From Interstate 595, use exit 9 to reach SR 84 west. From Florida’s Turnpike, take exit 54, drive east on SR 84, and make a U-turn just beyond SW 29th Ave to get to the park entrance.

Hike

From the temporary nature center and restrooms in place in the center of the parking circle, walk to the Secret Woods archway to start your hike.

A trail map shows the loops and the closures along them. A low boardwalk leads to two signposted trails on the right. Take the first one, the Pollinator Pathway.

First trail junction

Its boardwalk hovers above jagged limestone karst below tall cypresses, ending at a wood chip path. An archway introduces a loop around a garden island.

In it are pollinator-attracting native plants within the tropical hardwood hammock. Walk its perimeter past shaded benches, looping back to the archway to exit.

Garden island

Now take the adjoining Laurel Oak Trail. With the nature center closed, it’s the key entry point to the trail system. Interpretive signs call attention to specific plants and trees.

Its boardwalk bridges a fern-filled forest, emerging at a clearing with benches. Bear left to burrow into the tropical understory, signs pointing the way at junctions.

Boardwalk at the start of the Laurel Oak Trail

Join a boardwalk to cross a damp lowlying area with marsh ferns and giant leather ferns beneath the pond apples.

In the drier tunnel of forest beyond, mounds of sand surrounding distinctive holes are the homes of giant land crabs.

Burrow of a giant land crab next to the footpath

Cross a bridge near a niche with benches before emerging out of deep shade into a sunny corner of the preserve. Extraordinarily large pond apple trees rise above their surroundings.

A vine-draped arbor dotted with morning glory blossoms whisks the footpath into the next tunnel of tropical hammock, reaching a low boardwalk across a mangrove swamp at a quarter mile.

Vines below the pond apple trees

On the footpath again, walk amid tall, skinny bamboo-like columns of young white mangrove trunks. Past another niche with benches, bear right at a junction with a map.
A boardwalk leads to a trail junction outside the locked gates of the nature center. Turn the corner to begin the New River Trail on a boardwalk amid the dense tropical understory.

Trail kiosks outside the locked nature center gate

Royal palms rise above in areas where the canopy is diminished. A bundle of roots with a cavernous interior resolves into a strangler fig towering above a bench.

At the split in the boardwalk at 0.4 mile, bear right. At the end of a straightaway, a natural surface spur enters a Nature Play area among the tropical trees.

Bench in front of a tree with many roots dangling

Strangler fig

Bearing right, walk among sword ferns to reach the start of the zigzagging boardwalk through the mangrove swamp along the New River.

Until rebuilding has completed, there will be a turn-around point forcing a backtrack to the junction past the Nature Play Area. Make a right, and stay right at the next junction.

Nature Play Area

The low boardwalk becomes one with railings as it enters this wild wonder of Fort Lauderdale, a mature mangrove forest with thick-trunked trees.

At first white mangroves steal the show among shallow inky waters, joined by a few pond apples. At a second junction, with the Shady Grove Trail, keep right.

Inky waters below high canopy of mature mangroves

Mangrove forest

As the water below the boardwalk gets saltier and deeper, black mangroves take over, with distinctive bark and tiny finger-like protrusions of pnuematophores at their bases.

Red mangroves provide the finale along a gradient of salt and depth, their tangles of prop roots making for maze-line surroundings.

Red mangroves have long prop roots

Past a roofed shelter, zigzag between them, noting the reddish hue of the clear water below.

At 0.6 mile, turn right to parallel the New River, a natural waterway greatly impacted by development over the past century.

The New River

The boardwalk touching on a low archipelago of sand ridges within the mangrove swamp, a rare remaining natural river shoreline. Bromeliads thrive in the tree limbs above.

Again, the turn-around point depends on reconstruction of the Manatee Observation Deck. Once complete, being able to do this as a loop will knock a quarter mile off the mileage.

Boardwalk under mangroves with signage beyond

Approaching the Manatee Observation Deck

Return past the rain shelter to the Shady Grove junction at 1.1 miles and make a right. Below, young sprouts of slender white mangroves crowd their parents’ bases over dark waters.

Passing through two broad spots with benches, come to a junction where an Exit sign points right. It’s a rapid way to return to the parking area via the park road by 1.2 miles.

Shady Grove Trail

We found it more pleasant to continue around the Shady Grove loop to walk back through the woods. Take a right at the next two junctions.

Emerge at the trailhead at the closed gate at the nature center. Continue back along the Laurel Oak Trail, but this time bear right at the junction with the map.

Map junction

This portion of the tropical hammock contains another sizable strangler fig. A clear “Exit” sign points right at the next junction, and another does the same at the outdoor courtyard with benches.

Emerge from the Laurel Oak Trail and exit through the archway to the parking area, completing a 1.5 mile hike.

Exit sign on side of trail sign in woods

Exiting the loop in the Laurel Oak Trail

Trail Map

Explore More!

Video

Hiking Secret Woods Nature Center

Slideshow

See our photos from Secret Woods

Nearby Adventures

Anne Kolb Nature Center Whether a five-level observation tower or at ground level with the land crabs, Anne Kolb Nature Center focuses on the urban mangrove forest that it protects and interprets.

Fern Forest Nature Center A bounty of ferns awaits where three miles of trails introduce you to a slice of Florida’s past, a tropical forest surrounding the original floodplain of Cypress Creek near Fort Lauderdale.

Pine Island Ridge Natural Area Once part of a chain of islands in the Everglades, Pine Island Ridge is the highest natural elevation in Broward County, a home to indigenous cultures for over 5,000 years.

Easterlin Park A designated urban wilderness area just north of Fort Lauderdale, Easterlin Park immerses you in a dense tropical forest on its 0.9-mile loop trail.

Official Website