The first day was long and dusty, and hard on the feet. On the road sections we were constantly accompanied by heavy sugar cane trucks rumbling by at high speed kicking up clouds of dust and debris. The trail was easy enough to follow using the maps and data points, but very sparsely blazed. We set off later than anticipated, and took it easy, the legs weren't quite as willing as the minds after the excesses of Christmas and New Year! We finally made it back to the car just at sunset. The highlights of the day weres seeing several dust devils forming in the bare sugar cane fields, an actual meeting with other hikers, who had set off from the Southern terminus 2 weeks earlier and were headed for Pensacola, and a pleasant sunset for our last mile or so (which felt more like three!)
Our second day was a 13 mile straight line hike down the east side of the never deviating L3 canal (pictures right), then a right angle turn to the west for the final 2 miles straight line to the closest place we had been able to get the car. There was not much scenery except the canal, and the agriculture on either of these two days. Though we did see many alligators and birds, and the occasional field of horses and cows. The cows seemed very skittish of hikers, We noticed on both these 2 days that whenever the data book mentionned a reasonable place to camp, we could pretty much guarantee seeing one or more gators at the same place. That just made us feel better about our decision to day hike this section from a civilized campground with a coffee pot and showers! The third and final day of dayhiking was entirely roadwalk into the Seminole Reservation. There was much less breeze on this day than there had been for the first two, making for a much hotter walk, which was exacerbated by opting to hike in the dry ditch alongside the road, rather than on the actual road shoulder. The best part of the day though was that it was shorter mileage than the previous two had been, and there was a convenience store - "Dusti's" a couple of miles from the end where we took advantage of their cool breezy chickee to enjoy a cold soda and a hot tamale
On day four we shuttled one vehicle down to the Oasis Visitor center, about 8 hiking miles from the southern terminus of the trail, and only about 50 hiking miles from our campground, but requiring an almost 200 mile round trip car journey. We wanted to set off early and maybe do some sightseeing and reprovisioning on the drive. This pretty, misty, sunrise was the first reward for getting up early.
Fakahatchee Preserve One of our sightseeing stops was at the Fakahatchee State Preserve. (US41 west of US29). The 1/2 mile boardwalk runs into the Fakahatchee Strand. We passed a bald eagle nest on the walk, though didn't see the owner, and we were lucky enough to reach the viewing area at the end when no-one else was around. There was a plethora of wildlife there, and all you had to do was stand quietly to observe it. Anhingas were fishing, making the fish jump from the pond, and there were gators, herons, lizards all around. Back on the road, the next stop was the Ochopee Post Office (US41 east of US29), reputed as the smallest Post Office in the US.
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