Trujillo and Merida - Spain

After VaughanTown finished Javier and I decided we wanted to stay in the area for a weekend of relaxation. We drove round the National Park for a while before ending up in Trujillo, a nice old town with a moorish style castle on the hilltop. We found a nice hotel in a converted old building with a mezzanine great room and high ceilings in all the rooms. Very nice. We also found a little cafe with a set meal menu. I really don't know what I ate, except the soup was full of mushrooms and potatoes,and the main dish was pork of some kind. It was so good I went back for the same thing the next night after we had toured the castle and some of the town. On my last trip to Spain I saw a few storks on the large nest in La Alberca and Carrion de las Condes, but they evaded me every time I was carrying the camera. Here in Trujillo I finally managed to get some cooperation and photos of storks on their nests.

From Trujillo we explored Merida, once the administrative capital of the Roman province of Lusitania. We spent the afternoon wandering round the ruins of old roman villas, with mosaic floors, and then the ruined amphitheatre, the best example of an old roman theatre I have seen, and the city museum.


For the last day we were hoping to do some walking in a local area famous for the cherry tree blossom. As hard as it is to believe after the gorgeous weather of the previous day, it rained and was bitterly cold all day! We eventually found some cherry trees, but we're not sure that we were actually in the right place. We drove on to Avila, a medieval walled town, but by then it was raining turning to sleet and snow, so definitely not suitable for sightseeing.

Now we're back in Madrid and I'm heading to England to see the family tomorrow.


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Monfrague - VaughanTown

This purpose of this trip to Spain was to spend another week at VaughanTown, the English language conversation program that provides room and board for volunteers in return for conversing in English with Spanish students for a week.

I had chosen to attend this particular program as my friend Javier, who I met at my last VaughanTown in Carrion de los Condes, is attending again as the final part of his English Masters program. The program was held in Monfrague, a large rugged National Park. Usually participants, both the Spainsh students and the Anglo conversationeers would travel by bus. We have decided to remain in the area round Monfrague afterwards, so Javi drove us down in his car, accompanied by Juan, another participant in my previous program.

The program itself was only so-so. My previous experiences with these programs have all been positive, but I am disappointed to say that this one was not very enjoyable. This is a new location for VaughanTown. The food was definitely not up to previous standards, and the coordinators for the program did not show as much interest in making it a success as I had experienced in the past.

We've made the most of the week though. The scenery at Monfrague was impressive. As we had access to the vehicle we managed to spend some time visiting the castle, actually more of an outpost on a rocky outcrop, and watching the many birds that nest in this area.

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Florida Trail End to Ender

This week of hiking was our last week on the Florida Trail. Actually we didn't really need to hike it anyway. The FL Trail has two official ends. The traditional end, which we hiked this week, is along the gulf coast to Ft Pickens. The alternate end, which we hiked last week, connects to the Alabama Trail and on to the Appalachian Trail. In both of the other places on the FL Trail were there are two official routes I had already hiked both options so I wanted to do both ends.

My good friend Brian is hiking the Eastern Continental Trail. He has been somewhere behind us for the past several months on the trail and finally almost caught up to us. He is completing the last few days of the Florida Trail on the alternate end, and will continue on through Alabama and then to the AT. For this week we have all been staying with another good friend, MaryBeth, at her appartment. Each day I have been dropping off Brian for his day's hiking, meeting back up with Ian for our hike, then picking up Brian again at the end of the day. I'm exhausted. You could have caught up to us a week earlier Brian! But it's been an awesome week: great camararderie and the completion of the Florida trail for the three of us.

Our beach walk was great. From Navarre Beach to Pensacola Beach the road was totally destroyed by Hurricane Ivan several years ago. The ruined road is closed for reconstruction, but still hikeable. It’s amazing to see the damage that water power can do to a road. In several places the entire road was washed out, but for the remainder, large sections of the top skin of blacktop had been lifted off by the water and carried about 50 feet north of the road. It was incredible to see the entire road surface laying either intact or jumbled up beside the original road. We alternated by walking the road and the surf. We got to watch a couple of dolphins playing in the surf, stopped just to sit on a dune and watch the sunset, and took our first night hike (completed walking down the middle of the road in the dark without headlights, and actually both with sunglasses on!) It was several days of very enjoyable hiking.

The last day was another short and beautiful sunny day. Walking the beach I couldn’t resist taking off my boots and socks and hiking in the surf. It felt great, and I wasn’t even worried about the natural exfoliation of all my hard won calluses with only a few more miles to hike. Eventually the trail turned back to the road the final mile or so of trail and I almost got my first snake bite of the trip when I almost stood on a Moccasin sunning itself right on the double yellow line in the middle of the road! Fortunately Ian was right next to me and saw the snake and warned me to back away when I was within a step or two of it.

At the Ft Pickens terminus it was a rather emotional touching the final blaze together. It’s hard to think we have walked this far. We spent a few minutes celebrating and trying to get a self timer photo of the two of us together. Fortunately a group of cyclists came along. They were happy to oblige by taking a couple of photos of us together after they learned where we’d walked from. From there we took a boat taxi to Pensacola. After hiking 1400 miles I really didn't want to walk the 7 miles back to the parking lot!

The end of a journey. On soon to the next adventures.

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Out of the woods to the beach

After a short break back in Tampa, we have returned to Harold to commence hiking the other final section of the Florida Trail. This direction, taking us eventually to Ft Pickens is the more traditional end of the trail.

The hike itself was pretty decent. Dirt road usually paralleled the road walks, and we got even more of a road reprieve when the trail moved over onto the “Old Brick Highway” a preserved remnant of the 1920’s highway from Pensacola to Jacksonville. It was literally paved with brick, and was obviously originally only one lane. It appears that concrete edges were later added to provide enough width for two traffic lanes. Part of the highway was grassed over, but for the majority of the portion we hiked the brick, and even the yellow center line, was intact.

After we crossed the Yellow River again (we had crossed it a week or so back on the way out of Crestview and we had thought the water looked high then, but amazingly it seemed even more flooded here) we re-entered Eglin Air Force base and our last forest section of the trail. It was not the best experience for us. The trail was used as a trash dump and target practice by the locals. I prefer to remember Blackwater as my last forest memories.

The forest ended at a short road walk down to Navarre Beach for our final leg of the trail along the Gulf beaches to the Ft Pickens terminus.

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Reshuffle break

That was a chaotic week!

We (or I) had a little problem. We have been using the RV to live in while we have been hiking the Florida Trail, and we have been using our two vehicles positioned at each end of our day's hike to transport us to and from our easily day hikeable chunks of trail. Now that we are nearing the end of the trail we had to deal with the problem of being able to get three vehicles with only two drivers back to Tampa when we finish the trail.

Brian catching up to us when he did was totally serendipitous! He also lives in Tampa, and when offered, jumped at the chance to go home for a couple of days before he continues on his hike up through Alabama. Problem solved. He drove my car home while I drove the RV. After a couple of chaotic days of planning and packing for my upcoming Europe trip, he picked me up in my own car and we drove back to Ft Walton Beach and my good friend MaryBeth. She is allowing us to stay at her house while we’re hiking in reasonable range of here. Thanks from all of us MaryBeth. There are not many non hikers that would allow their homes to be taken over by 3 stinky hikers and all their gear for several days.

We hiked to Alabama!

It’s Spring again in north Florida. Warm enough to start out without a sweater, clear blue skies, and gentle breezes, getting warmer during the day, but never uncomfortable. Even better, we were back off the road and into the forested Blackwater area, and heading north towards the Alabama line. Nice trail, but with multiple blowdowns from the recent storms. We cleared what we couldn’t easily walk around, leaving only a few larger blocked areas that we couldn’t see a way to clear.

One of the high points of the four days hiking was the actual highest point on the Florida Trail, at around 300 feet. We took suitable anti-altitude precautions before ascending though! Other noteworthy points in the hike were the crystal clear, cool springs we crossed, the beautiful deserted sweeping sandy beach on the Blackwater River at Deaton Bridge, and walking along the banks of Juniper Creek, a clear, slightly yellow tinged creek, not dark enough to be called blackwater and only noticeable because of the white sand riverbed.

We encountered a couple of Florida Trail rarities on this section: Shelters. Having seen only a couple on the entire lenghth of the trail from Big Cypress, we passed 3 in Blackwater State Forest, and Hikers! We also crossed paths with four backpackers headed south, but they were not attempting the entire Trail, just a couple of days out hiking the loops in Blackwater.

We took our time on this nice forested section, and with such beautiful weather. Our goal is the Alabama State line and the northern terminus of the Florida Trail. The adventure was drawing to a close,and the end was bittersweet. We were running have run out of northbound Florida Trail!

The last day of hiking was warm and with clear blue skies and a strengthening breeze. At least right up until the last half hour when it clouded up, just in time for our State line photos, and then dumped rain on us for the mile hike back to the last road crossing and the car. It couldn’t dampen our spirits though. We are both happy to have hiked the complete length of the trail, and amazed thinking back how quickly it has seemed to pass, but how long ago we hiked certain places.

Today we met up with Brian, who now has only about 50 miles of the Florida Trail to hike as he continues on his Eastern Continental Trail (Key West to Newfoundland) hike. Brian and I met before he started hiking. We have been expecting him to catch us since we started re-hiking in November, and hoping he would not pass us by without even seeing each other during one of our overnights away from the trail, or our many trips back home. We had been in contact over the past couple of days hoping we could finally get together before Ian and I head home. Today was the day. We managed to meet up and eat real food for dinner. There are severe storms forecast for this area tonight. Brian accepted our invitation to spend a dry night, and I’m happy to report the guys are both snoring away, one at each end of the RV, while I’m bunked on the table for the night.

That’s all for now. We’ll all be taking a break for a couple of days, then returning here. Brian to continue NOBO on the trail we've hiked this week, and ian and I to hike the more traditional NOBO end of the Florida Trail from Harold to Fort Pickens.

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