Friday, 14 November 2025

Day 5 - Cycling on the West Orange Trail

A nice relaxed start this morning with breakfast at the villa. Keith had seen online what looks like a nice 5 mile cycle ride a little north of here. With the weather warming up a little to a nice 21 degrees, we thought it might be a good day for that.

Stephen drove us up the US27 towards Clermont then onto the 50 east towards the Killarney Station on the West Orange Trail to rent some bikes. Stephen has definitely taken over driver responsibilities this holiday!

Lovely helpful man sorted us some bikes, helmets and locks and advised us on our route. The whole trail is much longer with some more challenging sections, but it is many, many years since any of us have ridden bikes so we stuck with the easier 5 mile paved ride to the small town of Winter Garden.

After navigating the nearby roubdabout junction (quite the novelty over here) we set off along the purpose built pathways passing small ponds, grass areas and nosing at all the local houses and back yards. So peaceful and perfect under the dappled shade of trees the whole way. 

We arrived in Winter Garden, a small, I presume, touristy town, beautifully kept with lots of flowers and seating areas, small shops to browse in, and plenty of eateries!

We locked up the bikes and wandered for a while before stopping for lunch in a little Mexican restaurant where we shared a couple of taco meals.





Back through the town, we returned to the bikes and started off back to the start point. 






The weather today made this a perfect activity, not too hot, but warm enough for jeans and t-shirts. We all thoroughly enjoyed it and had completed the trip in a little under 3 hours.

We stopped at World of Citrus on the way back. They have a new location just up the road from where it used to be with a few animals to see, pigs, kangaroos, capybara etc. The shop didn't seem as big as I remembered with less produce available but I did get a grapefruit for Keith and I to have for breakfast!

Back to the villa, hot water is still playing up despite plumber having tightened some bits inside it!

We chilled for a while before heading out for dinner. Keith wasn't feeling great this evening, so he stayed home while Sarah, Stephen and I headed for a fishy dinner at Red Lobster. Keith isn't keen on fish anyway, but Sarah wanted to try some snow crab and Stephen thought he'd like to try to, so tonight seemed the ideal opportunity.

We ordered a large platter plate with lobster, snow crab and shrimp for me, Sarah had a shrimp platter and Stephen had salmon. We were then able to sample some different things from each other. This worked well, and we quite a laugh trying to extract meat from the crab legs! We all enjoyed the crab and the lobster. Stephen doesn't like shrimp/prawns but they were lovely too and Sarah and I enjoyed the varieties of breaded butterfly prawns, breaded shrimp, garlic prawns and prawn linguine! We also had a hush puppy side with my meal to try. The cheddar scones were also good, but we didn't fill ourselves up with those so had them bagged to bring home.



Back home and again, once sat down we were suddenly shattered and it wasn't long gefirecwe we're all heading to bed.


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