From Wednesday, January 4th, to Saturday, January 7th, The Girl Child and I traversed 173 miles of the East Coast Greenway from the Florida state line to the heart of Daytona Beach. While we only walked 5 miles of the actual trail (explained further into this post), we really walked over 5 miles a day and explored quite a bit of the northern coast of Florida both on foot and by vehicle, and made some important revisions to our trail goals. This is part 1 of a series of 3 posts covering our 4 days of on-trail (and off-trail) adventure, and includes all portions of the trail from the Florida Line to the bridge leading from Amelia Island to Big Talbot Island.
We drove the on-road portion of the trail from the Georgia/Florida line to Peters Point Park on Amelia Island, which is where the (supposed) off-road trail began.
Above and below, we left our "No Bad Vibes" rock for future travelers to find beneath a lovely palm tree.
We very much enjoyed about a mile of winding sidewalk, despite the fact that it ran quite near a rather busy road, when abruptly the sidewalk disappeared and the "trail" became a bike lane on the busy road, with a 55 mph speed limit. We walked along the shoulder breifly, expecting the sidewalk to reappear, and when it didn't we referenced our maps and returned to Peters Point Park the way we came to regroup. In exploring more of the trail by car, we came to realize that much of the trail was in situations where we just were not comfortable walking due to safety issues. Not only that, but Amelia Island is extremely rich in beautiful beaches, parks, dedicated walking trails and natural areas; it seemed to both of us a silly waste of time to walk along a highway when we could be enjoying all that this beautiful state has to offer. We started this journey to get ourselves exploring the great outdoors, it makes no sense to spend those hours sucking in exhaust fumes and risking our lives in traffic.
So we modified our goals for our big adventure: we will drive the portions of the trail that can be driven, walk the portions that truly are dedicated off-road trails, and take the time to enjoy the beauty of the natural areas we traverse through.
Like, Fernandina Beach.
And Fort Clinch State Park.
Where we hunted for (and found!) fossilized shark teeth, and watched a glorious sunset.
31 on-trail miles were covered in this part of this leg, which brings our totals thus far to 189 miles traversed (79 of them walked) and 2811 to go. Plus so very much more. To be continued!
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