Nature Coast State Trail

We biked another part of the Florida Greenway system this morning. The Nature Coast State Trail runs for 31.7 miles, but it is not in a straight line but rather more like three spokes from a hub. The "hub" is in Fanning Springs. We started at the trailhead in Trenton, at the old Trenton Railroad Depot and headed west towards Old Town. Our destination was the historic railroad bridge over the Suwannee River.

The trail runs pretty much straight as an arrow, paralleling Florida Hwy 26 and separated from it by only a narrow band of vegetation.  Part of the way there's a canopy of trees overhead, but for most of the route we were trying to stay as much as possible in the shade of whatever trees and such along the path. The weather cooperated, because after a bit the gathering clouds obscured the sun and kept us a bit cooler. It even sprinkled on us enough to cool us off a bit, but not enough to really get us wet.

We were happy to arrive at the now familiar Suwannee River. It is continuing to rise and to run rather more swiftly than usual.

The railroad bridge is indeed an impressive structure.

At the Old Town trailhead, we turned around. At least we think we were at the trailhead. It was the least marked trailhead we have ever seen, with no amenities. In fact, there were no signs at all, just a grassy verge for parking.

Next we rode south a bit to the Fanning Springs trailhead. It is much better marked, but has no facilities aside from a parking area. However we were happy to discover restrooms and even some picnic tables just a few hundred feet north of the trailhead. We stopped for lunch and had the little park all to ourselves.

After lunch we got back on the bikes and headed back to the Trenton trailhead. Although the trail, like most rails to trails routes, is mainly level, it had been slightly uphill as we rode away from Trenton. We enjoyed the slight downhill as we rode back, making the last few miles of our ride a bit easier. Altogether we rode almost 25 miles.

This evening we decided to take advantage of the heated and screened swimming pool. It was full of splashing kids over the weekend, but since the campground had largely cleared out, we thought there might be room for us this evening. When we got to the pool, two kids were tussling and splashing, but we had the deep end to ourselves. We were surprised to find that half the pool is five to six feet deep.

Tomorrow we'll be moving on to HoHum RV Park on "Florida's Forgotten Coast" (the panhandle). It's southwest of Tallahassee and right on the Gulf of Mexico.