Why the Better Half of Jungle Trail Starts Right at Bermuda Club's Gate

The sun is barely over the dune line when the first wheels hit the sand-and-shell surface outside Bermuda Club. No cars yet, just the occasional jogger and the low hum of tires finding a rhythm on hard-packed ground. Within a few hundred yards the live oaks close overhead and the temperature drops enough to notice. This is Jungle Trail, the eight-mile unpaved road that has carried barrier island traffic since the 1920s, back when it hauled citrus instead of commuters on cruiser bikes.

Most write-ups about Jungle Trail treat it as a single, continuous experience: an old road, some oaks, a historic pier, done. That flattens something residents here already sense without naming it. The road actually splits into two distinct rides, and the dividing line is a single road crossing at Wabasso Beach Road, also known as County Road 510. Which half you experience first depends entirely on where you start. From Bermuda Club, positioned near the north end of the barrier island close to Disney's Vero Beach Resort, the quieter and more scenic half is the one you reach first, with no effort required. The landmarks most guides lead with sit on the other side of two road crossings, and they're worth the ride, but they are not the easy loop.

Two Roads, One Crossing

Head north from Bermuda Club and the trail moves into Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge well before the ride has time to warm up. Pelican Island was the nation's first national wildlife refuge, established in 1903. This stretch is largely undeveloped: open savanna of palm and sea grape, long views across the Indian River Lagoon, and canopy tunnels where the hammock closes over the road completely. It's the section locals describe as the reason to own a bike with wide enough tires to handle soft sand after rain.

Cross Wabasso Beach Road heading south and the character changes. The trail runs between the lagoon on one side and the backyards of homes on the other, past gated golf communities, with noticeably less shade. It's not an unattractive ride, but it is a different one, and it's also where the two landmarks most Jungle Trail guides open with are actually located: Captain Forster Hammock Preserve and, near the Wabasso Beach Road junction itself, Jones Pier.

The road doesn't change gradually. It changes at one crossing.

That distinction matters because most published guides to Jungle Trail are written from the perspective of a visitor approaching from the south, near Indian River Shores, where the trail's southern endpoint sits at Old Winter Beach Road. Coming from that direction, Captain Forster Hammock Preserve and Jones Pier are the first payoff, so they get top billing. Coming from Bermuda Club, they're the destination at the far end of a longer ride, past two intersections, not the default morning loop.

What's Actually a Five-Minute Ride From the Gate

The refuge section north of Wabasso Beach Road holds most of what makes the trail worth doing on an ordinary Tuesday, not just a special outing. A parking area just off A1A near the trail's northern endpoint gives access to a 2.5-mile walking path along a peninsula on the Indian River, no bikes allowed on that particular stretch. A short distance south, a second parking area leads to the Centennial Trail, part boardwalk and part paved path, ending at a lookout with spotting scopes trained on the original Pelican Island itself, where wood storks, pelicans, egrets, herons, and ospreys roost depending on the season.

Continue south from there and the trail stays close to the river, passing a kayak and canoe launch point where fishing is also common, before turning inland after about 1.3 miles and beginning to pass gated golf communities. This entire section, from the refuge trailhead down to that inland turn, is the ride Bermuda Club residents can do before the coffee gets cold. A short list of what that loop actually covers:

• A canopy-covered stretch of hard-packed sand and shell road, generally passable in ordinary tires except after heavy rain
• The Centennial Trail boardwalk and overlook, with a direct sightline to the original 1903 Pelican Island
• A kayak and canoe launch roughly 1.3 miles south of the refuge trailhead, with fishing permitted under standard state regulations
• Dolphin sightings in the lagoon, reported often enough by riders to be considered a normal part of the loop rather than a lucky exception

The Named Landmarks Sit Two Crossings Away

Push south past Wabasso Beach Road and, a bit further along, past a second crossing at Orchid Island Drive, and the ride changes again. This is the stretch one longtime chronicler of the trail called less scenic than the refuge section, and the description holds up: less shade, homes closer to the road, the kind of ride where you notice the neighborhood more than the wilderness. It's also home to two things worth the extra distance. Jones Pier, near the Wabasso Beach Road junction, is generally cited as the oldest pier on this stretch of the lagoon, tied to a family that lived on the site and worked it for three generations starting in 1907. Further south, Captain Forster Hammock Preserve protects roughly 110 acres of the last stretch of original maritime hammock left on the barrier island, live oaks and ferns thick enough that it's easy to forget the whole island once looked like this.

Both are genuinely worth a slower ride on a weekend morning. Neither is a five-minute loop from Bermuda Club, and riders heading that direction should know the practical details that come with the southern stretch: the crossing at Wabasso Beach Road has no pedestrian signal, so caution matters, and in early morning or around dusk it's worth watching the road surface itself, since snakes warming on the sand are a normal part of this section's ecology, not a rare occurrence.

Where the Ride Actually Ends

For a resident who rides north into the refuge and back, the natural stopping point is Disney's Vero Beach Resort, whose Wind & Waves Grill sits at the edge of the same Wabasso Beach stretch the trail runs through. The restaurant's oak-fired brick oven and Florida seafood-forward menu have made it a regular stop for riders passing through, not just resort guests. Worth knowing this month specifically: the resort's Green Cabin Room Lounge closed for refurbishment from early May through late August 2026, with food and beverage service shifting to Wind & Waves Grill and a temporary lounge space in the SeaGrape Room off the lobby during that stretch. That window has now closed, which means the lounge should be back in its usual form for anyone finishing a ride there this September.

The Point of Knowing the Split

None of this changes what Jungle Trail is. It's still a National Register of Historic Places road built for citrus growers a century ago, still one of the few places left where the barrier island looks close to how it did before development filled in around it. What changes is which version of that road belongs to daily life here and which belongs to a deliberate weekend trip. Bermuda Club sits close enough to the quiet, refuge-side half that it can be a Tuesday morning habit rather than an event. The landmarks with the historical markers and the pier that's been there since 1907 are still worth the longer ride south. They're just not the same ride, and knowing the difference is the kind of thing that only comes from actually living here rather than reading about it from the highway.

If you're weighing a move to this stretch of the barrier island, or already call it home and want a second opinion on what's changing nearby, The Luxury Real Estate Services with Livia Sorger is glad to talk it through. Let's Connect.