Ginger Ale Springs is located in Longwood, Florida very close to the intersection of 434 and Markham Woods Road. To find the spring, turn onto Markham Woods Road and go to the very steep driveway that goes to the parking lots of the restaurants at this intersection. Park your car and walk down the driveway. At the bottom of the driveway, there is the Seminole Wekiva Trail (usefull if spring hunting by bike). Cross the street and take note of the sidewalk. When the sidewalk gets to a telephone pole, it curves around the pole. Count the curves, and when you get to the second curve, right past the big storm drain, look into the woods next to the sidewalk. You should see some palm trees and some ginger plants close to the road. Find the path going into the woods here and follow it. As soon as you get into the trees, you should see the spring...

Ginger Ale Springs is a small spring. The output of water is small compared to many other springs, but it does put out enough water to make a wonderful flowing water noise. The spring's boil is quite close to the edge of the trees. A concrete wall was built around the boils making a small pool. The water drains out of the pool, falling a few feet into a stream that flows to the Little Wekiva River. I have heard that this pool was built years ago by a ginger ale bottling plant. The water from the spring was used in making their soda until the water turned sulfurous and nobody wanted to drink the soda anymore. Except for the concrete pool, I couldn't find any evidence to support this theory, but either way, the man-made spring pool is there. Apparently somebody had some pet guppys that multiplied too fast for their liking and poured them into this spring pool. The little fish with big, bright colored tails were thriving above the boils of Ginger Ale Springs. The fish may also be Mosquito fish, which I have found look very similar to guppys, except for having duller colored tails. Based on the colors I saw, I'm asumming these were guppys. Another previous visitor that found Ginger Ale Springs set up a little shrine over the spring pool with a statue of the Virgin Mary. The statue seemed like it had been there a while. The palm tree behind the statue seemed to be growing around it. On a second visit to the spring, I noticed that somebody also scattered toy parts around the pool. Not too far above the Virgin Mary in the palm tree, there was a decapitated Barbie head...

The water from the spring pool drains out over a two foot tall waterfall into a stream. The stream flows a few hundred feet through the woods until it reaches the Little Wekiva River. There are supposed to be some more springs where the stream meets the river, but I was unable to follow the stream all the way to the river due to mud and the lack of clear paths, so I didn't see these springs. I did find a path that followed the stream for a while before parting and heading straight for the river while the stream turned and flowed out of sight.

	The Little Wekiva River, seen below, flows from Altamonte Springs to where it meets the Wekiva River. Along it's run, the Little Wekiva starts out from a lake, passes under 434, then passes under 436, runs through some parks and neighborhoods, passes under 434 a second time, and then enters The Springs subdivision. Within the gated walls of The Springs, one of the main attractions is Sanlando Springs. The Little Wekiva is diverted here to make a more appealing swimming area for Sanlando Springs, which eventually joins up with the river. The Little Wekiva then flows out of The Springs and splits. The opposite shore of the river seen in the pictures below is actually the island that is between the two forks of the Little Wekiva. The forks of the river eventually meet again, and the river finishes it's run to the Wekiva.

After finding out about Ginger Ale Springs and visiting it, I started thinking about how many springs there probably are like this all over the state that nobody really pays any attention to. While driving places, I started noticing all sorts of creeks flowing along and under roads. I don't normally think of there being a lot of streams flowing through the central Florida area, but if you actually look for them, they seem to be all over. The water from these creeks has to be coming from somewhere, and I wonder how many of these tiny waterways start in springs like this. I think I have some exploring to do in order to find out...