Terry braves the ‘gators…. Florahome to Aluchua

We woke just before seven to the sound of a bird hooting in the woods and the roar of trucks hustling down Highway 100. It was still dark when we emerged from our tents a short while later and the air was thick with moisture. 

The damp ground was carpeted in lichen, most of it green and fluffy, but some with bright red caps at the ends of its fronds. Florahome obviously didn’t have a model railway society or this stuff would have been plundered years ago to create minature forests. I did considering collecting some to take home, but then remembered we still had 3,000 miles to go. Besides which the last time I was in Californian I was questioned for carrying a ‘illegal banana’ after a airport sniffer dog homed in on its scent. So goodness knows how the U.S. Dept of Agriculture would react to two month old lichen plundered from Florida.

We also realised we’d been camping illegally. As Terry packed up his tent he turned over a face down sign we’d both spotted the night, before but chosen to ignore. The message was clear – this was private property. It was time to get moving before the turkey brothers showed up and we ended up doing bird.

We headed off down the cycle path in search of breakfast in nearby Grandin. We’ve learnt from experience that the way to find the best diner in the area is to look for the row of pick-ups parked outside. The diner with the most pick-ups will be the best. It works everytime, except there were none to be found anywhere in Grandin so we continued onwards down the excellent Palatka-Lake Butler State trail where an orange bollard in the middle of the path declared it was closed due to flooding.

With the early morning mist and fog it was impossible to see how much of the cycle path was underwater, or how deep it was, so I did the only logical thing – I sent Terry across on his bike first to test the waters. As the swap rose above his crank I reminded him that Florida has a sizeable alligator population and they love nothing more than a nice bit of British shank for breakfast. I made sure I filmed it all for insurance purposes of course.

As he ploughed through the water I recalled those David Attenborough documentaries showing herds of wildebeast striking out across the Zambesi river while the waiting crocodiles picked them off one by one. With Terry safely across I followed. At one point the bottom six inches of my front panniers disappeared underwater, but fortunately the ‘gators weren’t interested in British brisket and the worst indignity we suffered were our feet soaked in swamp water.

Shortly afterwards we passed a church with a sign reading ‘In This House We Praise Jesus and yell Go Gators!’ which we hoped referred to a local football team, rather than the congregation taking turns to urge hapless travellers to risk cycling through the local floodwaters. But we decided in future we’d be better taking a diversion onto the road. 

Our search for breakfast continued in the mist to Putnam Hall (again no trucks or any signs of life at all) and then onto Hawthorne, more than twenty miles from where we set out. By this time we were ravenous and although we could smell food being cooked and tried to follow our noses to find it, we failed so we had to pop into a florist to locate the diner. Dianne’s Old Time BBQ ‘Serving Breakfast 6.00am to 0.30am’, lay on the other side of the 331 Sid Martin Highway, which continues north up to Jacksonville.

Outside were a line a Dodge Rams, Chevvy Silverados and Ford F150s. We’d struck gold.  It was home cooking at its best and I opted for a bowl of Yummies – homefries cut into squares, smothered in gravy and all mixed up with eggs and ham. It was fabulous comfort food and perfect for a cold damp morning and trench foot. 

We got chatting to one of the diners, Tim, who lived locally, but was originally from New Hampshire. He had come to Florida to live near his wife’s parents who ran a local dairy farm, but times were hard with dairy farms closing at the rate of one a day across the country. The weather didn’t seem to be helping either. He told us about the heavy rain Florida had been suffering over the past couple of years and the uncertainly and concern the September Hurricane season could bring. 

He explained how this part of Florida had largely missed the worst effects of Hurricane Michael, a Category 5 hurricane which made landfall on the Florida Panhandle on October 10, 2018. It killed 50 people in the state and racked up a bill of more than $25 billion. Even after it had passed through people were still on a knife edge. Tim explained that some hurricane systems can sweep in across the state from the eastern seaboard, wreck havoc in their path, exit into the Gulf of Mexico and then about turn for another brawl with the locals. 

It was a sobering thought as we headed off and joined the Gainesville to Hawthorne State Trail – a wonderful off road cycle path which again followed the route of a former railway. A little further along and we met our first cyclist of the journey so far. Jim was riding a recumbent and in his time had ridden Paris – Brest – Paris but now seemed happy to pootle up and down the trail near his home. You couldn’t blame him, it was a beautiful spot with the air full with bird song. 

At one point we were convinced a hoopee had flown right in front of us and there followed a spot of bird watching trying to track down the elusive hoopee and get a glimpse of red headed woodpeckers which are a year round Florida resident. Fortunately Terry and I share a love of natural history, which is a good job since in my experience not many other cyclists I’ve ridden with have shown the slightest interest. Usually when I spot something of interest in the UK like a little owl or a buzzard I quickly find myself cycling alone, but with Terry a spot of bird watching is an essential part of the journey.

By the afternoon it was getting pretty warm and a short while later we stopped again at Payne’s Praire, looking out across Alachua Lake, and spotting egrets, herons and a crane. In the 1830s this landscape had been the backdrop of the Battle of Black Point which started the Second Seminole War. Today the battle seems to be ways in which the prairie, which in 1970 became Florida’s first state preserve, can be restored back to its natural state. 

A rail connector path then took us into Gainesville, population around 130,000 and home to the University of Florida where we found a hipster coffee shop packed with students where every single one of them was engrossed in whatever was taking place on the screens of their laptops. No-one seemed to be speaking to each other, so Terry and I sat outside lapping up the weather coffee and sunshine and nattering away in our sweaty lycra. Ok, so maybe that’s why they ignored us? 

Coming out of Gainsville the swamp gave way to more open farmland with gentling undulating hills which Terry remarked were more in keeping with rural Virginia than Florida. The signs were ominous as we arrived at our night stop and saw scores of birds of prey circling over the main road junction above us. We took no chances and ducked into Tony and Al’s restaurant where the waitress poured us multiple top ups of coke to cool down. Shortly after we checked into a Quality Inn before braving it and darting across a dual carriageway to Sonny’s BBQ for dinner, which to Terry’s delight had an all you can eat salad bar and he pigged out on leaves while I tackled a chicken.

Total distance: 60.02 miles

Total distance since Anastasia State Park: 127 miles