Exploring the World With Pokémon Go: E Central Regional Rail Trail 4
Though I put it off for a long time, I returned to continue my hike down E Central Regional Rail Trail 4. It split off from the coast to coast trail. I’m following it north.
I noticed right away that there were no mile markers on this trail. The ones I had seen on earlier sections of E Central Rail Trail had been for the Coast to Coast Trail. With no other markers to use, I selected the blue gps signs I saw along the other sections of both trails.
To keep things consistent both in this post and the prior ones, I used the one above to define the first segment. Admittedly that segment was about one hundred feet.
E Central Rail Trail took me back into the swamps of Volusia County. And I have talked at length about this part of Florida. Talked to death about it in fact. Instead of repeating that post again, I was more selective with photos. So there are less to see but I liked what I saw more.
Anyway lets talk about the non green walls and not swamp bits. People live around here. I know, its strange to me too. But not strange to those who want to be out here where they don’t have to deal with other people. I guess I can see the appeal. But I wouldn’t want to live out here. Exploring it on a hike is enough for me.
Deep Swamps:
The next section of E Central Rail Trail took me away from places people lived and back into the swamps. Plenty of animals live here though. I saw at least one hawk, plenty of squirrels, an untold number of ants, and who knows what else that didn’t catch my eye.
I made it early enough in the day for the weather to be perfect, but not soon enough for the early colors of the morning. But you can still see the sun’s position and know that it was mid morning in the later parts of this adventure.
I could try describing the photos above with words. But several other blog posts talking about similar areas have already exhausted every synonym I can come up with. Just take my word for it that you should take some time to look at the photos. Words don’t do justice in this scenario.
The green tree lines of E Central Rail trail vanished again for a moment. Want to take a guess what I found behind it? If you guessed more swamp, that’s right! I don’t know enough about the plant life here to talk more in depth on that stuff. Which is a shame since that leaves me with similar thoughts to the above couple paragraphs.
On a related note, but to change topics to put some new words on this part of the post, I came into this adventure with some pretty terrible allergies. I couldn’t hear out of my left ear very well, and my skin was itching a bit. Its allergy season in Florida as of me writing this post, and despite it seeming foolish to go on a walk in such conditions, I actually felt better during and after the walk than before.
An End in Sight:
The last section of this part of E Central Rail Trail offered some new sights. Notably a bridge across a creek swamp thing. I’m not quite sure if that type of water feature has a name. But that is what I saw looking down. I guess that is still a creek or river right?
The other major feature above is made of concrete. That’s Interstate 95 again. I reached it a lot sooner on this trail than Coast to Coast. Probably because I was going more east than north. But according to maps, this trail will be sticking near the interstate for quite a while after this. So I doubt this will be the last time I mention I95 while hiking this trail. But a road as important as this Interstate is impossible to ignore when near the Atlantic Ocean.
There is a lot still to do and see on this trail. This adventure had me walk 8 miles. That is part of why I waited so long to explore. And the next section doesn’t look much shorter.
Pokémon Go:
I let the pictures talk more than my words for the rest of this blog post up to here, so let’s shift gears and talk about this section of E Central Rail Trail and how it measures up in Pokémon Go. The above image shows where I stopped by Interstate 95. And while it paints most of the picture, its not the full one.
This entire segment didn’t have a single Pokestop to its name. Now if that sounds like most of the other hikes I took through Volusia County, you would be right. But this segment did have one thing that made it stand out. And in a positive way.
While there were no stops, there were plenty of spawns. I actually ran out of Pokeballs and spent quite a few Greatballs to compensate. And while I am currently catching every Pokemon in generations 1 and 2 that spawn for a quest, this was still a great catching trail, especially compared to prior sections.
All in all, if you want to hatch some eggs and catch a ton of Pokémon, come out out and hike this segment of the trail. Just make sure to stock up on items first.
Speaking of eggs, a long walk means a lot of hatches. Unfortunately, they were mostly 2k eggs so the rewards were nothing exciting. The Pawniard came out of a 12k Egg, but that isn’t a Pokémon I need right now, so it wasn’t anything to talk about.
I’ll still be walking this Zoroark for a good while. And it’s still sneaking into your house and eating your food while you read this.
Wrap Up:
Hey look its me. And I have a hat on again. Not pictured is the sunscreen and bug spray I used to not feel like crap on the hike. Also not pictured is the gut growing where my flat stomach used to be. And its absolutely not the reason I went on an 8 mile walk. Its also not the reason I’m looking forward to a second one of these long hikes. I hope you are excited too.