Day 256
Withlacoochee Trail
I had a slightly sleepless night as we had to be up early. A few days ago a guy called Roman who produces a weekly podcast had arranged to interview us about our trip. After the usual Zoom meeting technical issues, we chatted away, hopefully it will make an interesting podcast! This link is for his previous interviews, I will post the link for ours when live.
Then it was back to the Legacy Trail, boy it was so good to be away from all the noise of traffic with just the sound of birdsong to listen to! Too soon the trail ended and we returned to the roads, however they were on quiet much smaller roads, through housing developments, country clubs and small towns. Tom spotted a picnic table by a lake and we pulled in for a lunch break. The US do this so well, seats, shade, bins, toilets and a stunning view, we were very happy! We had stopped at the site of Fort Hamer. Florida was the home of the Seminole Indians, the clash between the settlers and the native population is a long one. The Europeans explored and exploited the ‘New World’ and I guess although our blog isn’t really the place to study this, it brought home to us again that beneath the beauty of these beautiful places we visit there is often a turbulent history.
Refreshed and inspired by the beauty of our picnic stop we returned to the road for the final few miles to our hotel.
The next morning, we hit the road again, knowing we had a few road miles to do before we could join another bike trail, the Withlacoochee Trail.
At 46 miles long it is one of the longest paved rail trails in Florida, and for two weary UK cyclists suffering under the Florida sun, it is just darn perfect. We had a fantastic surface to ride on, a stunning corridor of calm. Rest stops about every 10 miles, plenty of seats and picnic tables and dozens of fellow cyclists to wave and say hi too, and many happy to stop and chat with for a while.
Eventually we pulled off the trail to our camp site at Hog Island. A stunning spot, with friendly campers who made us a cup of tea, just what us Brits love!
