Peck Lake Park, Hobe Sound: A Visitor's Guide

There is a blue sign on SE Gomez Avenue, a gravel parking circle and a gap in the pines. That is everything Peck Lake Park announces about itself from the road, which is a fair part of why so many people who live ten minutes from it have never turned in.

Behind the sign sits roughly 70 acres of Martin County park and about a mile of round-trip walking that ends on a covered deck over the Indian River Lagoon, looking across open water at a barrier island with nothing built on it. It costs nothing, it is open sunrise to sunset, and it is the gentlest introduction there is to the natural side of this stretch of coast.

The practical details, first

• Address: 8108 SE Gomez Avenue, Hobe Sound
• Hours: sunrise to sunset
• Cost: free — no gate, no booth, no parking fee
• Trail: roughly a mile round trip, mostly boardwalk with graveled and natural sections
• Facilities: restrooms and a water fountain by the parking circle, a large picnic pavilion near the front and several more scattered along the way
• Dogs: leashed dogs are welcome, and there is a waste station at the trailhead
• No alcohol

Getting there is the part visitors most often fumble. From US-1, turn east on Osprey Street, cross A1A, then head north on Gomez Avenue; the entrance appears within about a quarter mile. There is no turn lane and no warning, so it is easy to sail past it.

Hours, closures and trail conditions do change. Martin County Parks and Recreation is the place to confirm before you make the drive.

The walk out

The trail starts at the back of the parking lot, past a weathered interpretive board with a map of the boardwalk painted on it. Two small signs stand in front of it, and both are worth taking seriously: stay on the designated path, and footwear is advisable. This is not a paved municipal loop.

What makes this short walk worth a drive rather than just a pleasant stroll is how much changes underfoot in half a mile. You start in pine flatwoods — high, dry, open, sandy. The ground then dips into baygall, a freshwater wetland that holds moisture when everything around it has gone crisp. After that comes oak hammock, shaded and closed in. And then the mangroves take over completely.

The mangrove stretch is the part people remember. Red mangrove prop roots arch up on both sides of the rail, the light turns flat and green, the air cools by a few degrees, and the road noise disappears entirely. If you have wondered what this coast looked like before it was drained and platted, this is a reasonable approximation, and it is a hundred yards from a parking space.

Roughly halfway out, the boardwalk passes a small covered shelter with interpretive panels. It is a natural place to stop with children, and the only shade of any consequence between the trailhead and the deck.

What is at the end

The boardwalk opens onto a broad wooden deck on the edge of the Indian River Lagoon, with a hip-roofed pavilion and picnic tables under it. There is a rail the whole way around and a set of steps down to a short stretch of shell and sand at the waterline.

It is a genuinely good view, and an unusual one for a free county park. To the east is the barrier island — the island tract of the Nathaniel P. Reed Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge and the protected land around it — which means the far shoreline is mangrove and cabbage palm rather than roofs and docks. There is very little developed land in the frame from up there.

The water is shallow, clear on a calm day and busy with life. Manatees move through, dolphins work the channel, wading birds pick along the flats, and mangrove crabs climb the tree limbs right beside the rail if you stand still long enough. Alligators turn up in the freshwater marsh inland, which is one more reason the signs ask you to stay on the path.

The other Peck Lake

Two different places share this name, and it causes regular confusion.

Peck Lake Park is the mainland county park described above — a boardwalk, a deck and a view. Peck Lake itself is the broad stretch of the Intracoastal off that shoreline, and it is one of the better-known anchorages on this part of the coast. On a good weekend you will see a line of boats tucked in along the far side, and from the deck you are looking straight at them.

What you cannot do is walk there. The anchorage and the undeveloped Atlantic beach behind it are reached by boat rather than from this park, and going ashore is governed by refuge rules that change. The park gives you the view of it for nothing; the crossing is a separate outing entirely.

The name, incidentally, traces back to Samuel Peck, a homesteader who came down from Augusta, Georgia. A good deal of the land around here still carries names from that era — Gomez Avenue among them.

What it says about living here

Peck Lake Park is a small park, and it is not the reason anyone buys a house in Hobe Sound. But it is a fair illustration of the trade this town makes.

There is no concession stand, no playground equipment, no splash pad and no event lawn. There is a boardwalk through four habitats, a deck, some picnic tables and a bathroom. Martin County's growth rules are the reason the far shoreline is still trees, and they are also the reason the amenity list is short. People who move here from denser parts of South Florida usually work out within a year which side of that trade they landed on, which is worth thinking through honestly before you buy — the pros and cons go at it directly.

The park also sits a short drive from the mainland residential core along Gomez Avenue and North Dixie Highway, where Hobe Sound's more accessible price points tend to be. If you are looking at houses on that side of US-1, this is a five-minute detour worth folding into the same trip.

Before you go

• Go early or late. There is real shade in the mangrove section and almost none on the deck.
• Bring water and insect repellent. The baygall and mangrove stretches earn the repellent.
• Wear closed shoes. The graveled and natural sections are uneven.
• Leash the dog and pick up after it.
• Stay on the boardwalk and the marked path — this is working habitat on both sides of the rail.
• Check current hours and any closures with Martin County Parks and Recreation before driving over.

Give it about forty-five minutes and you will have done it properly, which makes it the easiest thing on any Hobe Sound list to actually get around to — and a better first stop than most people expect when they are trying to work out whether this town suits them.