It’s not rocket science. Enter a world of enchantment along the Space Coast – massive magnolias, odd rocks - and keep alert for the blastoffs!
Once upon a time, sixteen hikers gathered together in a clearing surrounded by a true Florida oddity—rocks. Not just any rocks, mind you, but rocks that could dwarf a Chevy Nova. Not just any large rocks, mind you, but huge slabs of coquina, a sedimentary rock formed by the compression of tiny shards of broken seashells. And not just any huge slabs of coquina, but ones where natural processes drilled perfectly round holes through the rock—solution holes, a type of sinkhole.
We knew right then we were in a magical place.
Enchanted Forest Nature Sanctuary is a small preserve of incredible diversity, scarcely a mile west of the Indian River, south of Titusville. Purchased through Brevard County’s Environmentally Endangered Lands program, the area used to be a favored spot for dirt bikers and ATVs. Now fully fenced and staffed with volunteer docents, the deep forest, scrub, and coquina ridge are off limits to all but hikers.
This morning we are not the only large group hiking the forest. We slip by a crowd on an interpretive plant walk. This park is an excellent place to brush up on botany, as many signs mark specific plants.
Rising out of an oak forest, we reach the desert-like ridge, dry and open. Reforestation is under way. A splash of bright red among the dusty green draws our eyes to a coral bean’s blooms. Mosquitoes start dive-bombing, even at this early hour. We follow the blue trail nearly to the road, the site of an old coquina quarry shot through with several solution holes. Like sliced butter, the quarry walls show the smooth scooping of machines that once cut the rock for building stone. On the white trail, we duck under a large net, part of an insect trap. The collection cup teems with bugs. We pause at a flowering paw-paw, which our resident botanist, Elian, identifies as a relative of the soursop, a fruit seen often on Caribbean menus.
We turn onto the Orange Trail, following it into dense mesic hammock to walk the Magnolia Loop, a mile walk through large old magnolias and a forest canopy of grand live oaks decorated with resurrection fern. The diameter of these oaks is such that it would take three or four people holding hands to encircle them. Prop planes occasionally buzz the canopy, thanks to the nearby Titusville airport. Huge ferns carpet the hammock: Boston ferns, bracken ferns, royal ferns. A thousand shades of green delight the eye.
Back on the Orange Trail, we head north through a dried-up hydric hammock, balancing on bog bridges, running into our first water source—a side canal branching off the Addison Canal. Built in the 1930s, the Addison Canal was meant to drain an enormous hunk of wetlands between the St. Johns River and the Indian River for development. The canal ended abruptly here, at the Enchanted Forest, when the diggers hit the impenetrable coquina ridge. The project was abandoned years before coquina mining began.
We reach the canal itself, a deep cut guarded by high sand bluffs. A corrugated metal bridge crosses at a point where kids once installed a cable swing, now dangling, Tarzan-like, impossibly high over our heads. The water runs brown but clear; greenery edges both sides of the canal.
As we cross the bridge, it rattles and shakes with an unearthly tremor. Rocket launch! Someone yells, and we look up. Above us, the puffy contrail and the vanishing gleam of the Mars Explorer Odyssey, a vivid reminder that this is, after all, the Space Coast.
We stop on the high bluffs time and again to marvel at the severe dropoffs to the canal, an impossibly steep slope that seems to stretch a hundred feet in places. Emerging out of the forest back at the clearing of coquina stones, we retire to the picnic grove and break out lunch, with thanks all around my friend Joan for introducing us to this magical slice of Florida woodlands.
From I-95 exit 215, Titusville, drive east on SR 50 to the first traffic light, SR 405. Turn right and drive 2.5 miles to the park entrance on the left. Open Mon-Sat 9-5, Sun 1-5. Stop in the Visitor Center for an overview of the park’s habitats and a trail map. Restrooms and picnic area at the trailhead. Some of the trails are wheelchair accessible.
Central Florida 
It’s not rocket science. Enter a world of enchantment along the Space Coast – massive magnolias, odd rocks - and keep alert for the blastoffs! 
