Tomoka State Park — Ormond Scenic Loop Gate

The park entrance sits about a mile into the live-oak tunnel that forms along North Beach Street after you leave Ormond Beach's residential fringe. The transition is abrupt: pavement, shade, and the smell of marsh replace strip-mall Florida almost immediately. Tomoka State Park is a natural pause point here — the Tomoka River crossing just past the entrance opens the canopy briefly and gives you a wide look at the Tomoka Marsh Aquatic Preserve, which protects 368 acres of inland waterways and wetlands on either side of the road.

From the park, the western leg of the loop bends onto Old Dixie Highway through another oak corridor — this stretch was once part of a 1915–1929 network of auto trails — before Walter Boardman Lane feeds back toward the coast. The park itself draws riders who want more than the road: the Florida State Parks site lists birdwatching, fishing, boating, and hiking among the reasons to stop, and there is a camp store with river views where you can sit down for a few minutes before continuing in either direction.

The loop is flat and the posted limits are modest, so the draw is purely what you see from the seat — tidal marsh, cypress, moss-draped oaks, and the occasional heron working the shallows. Sections of the road run close to water with limited shoulder, so scan carefully on the curves, especially in low light.