With way too hot temperatures followed by hurricanes, flooding, and other stuff. There have been some trails I've wanted to hit up or further check out. One of them I wanted to get back on was the massive 46 miles of railway that got converted into a trail.

This thing reminds me of the West Orange Trail I hit up back when I was exploring the area of Orlando. There are quite a few areas on the trail. Unlike the West Orange Trail, some of these spots are quite a long walk from one point and then back. I do however over the long run want to hit up most of it if I can.

The cool thing is some of this trail even leads into state parks. Which then leads to further trails. It’s almost a shame I don’t care much for riding a bike. As there is quite a lot of ground to cover it would be cool to go from this trail to the state trails.

I do know this trail is shut down at sundown. While I think there are some special expectations for thru-hiking that is not me. At least not for quite some time. Although that would be quite fun as it seems this trail seems to connect to quite a few others.

On the path I ended up going this time there were a couple of road crossings. The good news is they were mostly near not busy streets. Some of these even feed into small blocks of houses that were built along the trail itself.

It was kind of fun to see who attempted to take the back portion of their lot and make a little path down the trail. Some decent elevation drops lead into this trail. Some people even put in stairs. While others it’s clear they had any way up blocked off to keep anyone from wandering off the trail into their yard.

The biggest thing I kept my eyes out for were Bald Eagles which I've been told sometimes you can see on this trail. I did spot a couple of large birds that seemed to have a white front portion of their bodies. They never got close enough and I'm quite sure what I did see were not that.

I have downloaded some bird-watching and reporting applications. Hopefully, I'll catch what time of year and time people seem to be reporting seeing eagles the most out there. I’m hoping to at least see one someday.

The biggest thing I've noticed about this portion of the trail is the slight elevation it has. You don’t notice it unless you look quite far down the path. In the direction I went I had a nice slight slope down. I noticed the slight elevation back up and walking back.

I’m just glad it was just a slight elevation. Some trails I've been on the hills alone require a bit of a break after getting up one of them. I spotted one bench partway into my walk and then nothing else before I decided to turn around.

There also must be a bike rental place somewhere. A lot of the bikes of people who came by in clusters seemed to all be riding the same bike. It was the same way on the West Orange Trail.

At least the people who ride bikes here are a lot more mannered. People keep their distance when passing. Everyone also wants to let you know they are about to pass. When there was plenty of space to pass there was just no need for the stuff, I noticed that went down on the Orange trail.

With this trail being an old railway, I was hoping it would run more in the middle of nowhere. That ended up not being the case. It seems they ran a small highway right next to it for the area. So, there was always the sound of cars not that far off.

While I was not expecting to see any animals other than birds. There was a bunny that jumped right back into the woods after crossing over before I could get a photo of it. I’m not sure how much further the direction it was going could have gone. As the highway was not that far away.

I am glad I did not try and do this trail in the middle of summer. While there were a couple of small sections with some shade like this spot. A lot of it was exposed with the sun right down on you. Even on a somewhat cooler day once it got to around noon, I could see why I was seeing fewer and fewer people out there.

At one point when I noticed there was another road crossing, I decided it was time to turn around. If I come out this way again, I might use that road crossing as a kind of a checkpoint. From the looks of the map, I might have been quite close to another entry spot with parking onto the trail. I might even attempt to start from there the next time I'm down in this area.

Final Thoughts

While it was clear some trees were at one point down in this area. It seems they at least got them cleaned up. Some of the other parts I want to hit up on this side of the state are still saying they are closed on their websites.

I’m hoping the mess from the hurricanes will not result in quite a few more trails being shut down for years to come. That was a bit of an issue I'd run into when exploring around Orlando. There were a lot of places to walk around there. It however seemed like anytime some trees fell they just never got them opened again in a timely manner.

I could also tell taking a prolonged break during summer and even further from the hurricanes has taken its toll. I did go out and do some walking around during the evenings. Nothing like I was doing before though. I sure felt it the next day since I had another active day.

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Photos were taken and content was written by @Enjar about my personal experiences in the real world away from the computer at home.