Route 5 is a rather lengthy route east of Turffield. You can only enter Route 5 after earning the Grass Badge, otherwise the path will be blocked.
There’s a large bridge on Route 5 that connects the route all the way over to your next destination, Hulbury. There’s also a Pokémon Nursery just before the bridge which you can use to breed Pokémon and teach egg moves.
| Encounters in the area | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overworld Encounter | ||||
| Pokémon | Types | Level | Rarity | |
 |
Stufful | 19–21 | 35% | |
 |
Swirlix | 19–21 | Sw: 30% | |
 |
Spritzee | 19–21 | Sh: 30% | |
 |
Minccino | 19–21 | Sw: 15%Sh: 20% | |
 |
Wobbuffet | 19–21 | 10% | |
 |
Galarian Farfetch'd | 19–21 | Sw: 5% | |
 |
Drifloon | 19–21 | 5% | |
| Random Encounter | ||||
| Pokémon | Types | Level | Rarity | |
 |
Dottler | 16–18 | 26% | |
 |
Espurr | 16–18 | 20% | |
 |
Nuzleaf | 16–18 | Sw: 20% | |
 |
Lombre | 16–18 | Sh: 20% | |
|
Swirlix | 16–18 | Sw: 14% | |
|
Spritzee | 16–18 | Sh: 14% | |
 |
Applin | 16–18 | 10% | |
 |
Dewpider | 16–18 | 5% | |
 |
Nincada | 16–18 | 5% | |
| While Fishing | ||||
| Pokémon | Types | Level | Rarity | |
 |
Magikarp | 16–18 | 70% | |
 |
Chewtle | 16–18 | 20% | |
 |
Goldeen | 16–18 | 10% | |
| Shaking Trees | ||||
| Pokémon | Types | Level | Rarity | |
 |
Skwovet | 16–18 | 100% | |
Near the start of Route 5 is a Double Battle against Interviewers Gillian and Cam. Take them down and then you’ll reach a fork in the road. There’s a northern part to Route 5 and a southern part to it. The quickest way to get through the route is the northern path, as it’s a nice straight line over to the bridge on the other side of the route, but there’s some optional things you can check out to the south if you’re up for it. The southern path does link up with the northern path.
Regardless of which way you go, be very careful around any Wobbuffet you see on the overworld, as their Shadow Tag ability will prevent anything except for Ghost-type Pokémon (and other Wobbuffet) from switching out or running away, so having a few Poké Dolls in your bag in case that happens is a good idea, as you can still flee using those.
Southern Path
Assuming you’re going through the southern path from the western side, pick up the 3 Heal Balls near the tree by the ramp leading down.
There’s a nearby berry tree that has Chesto Berries, Cheri Berries, and Chilan Berries, along with potentially others. There’s also Cook Stuart nearby for you to battle.
In the center of the southern path, near the small lake, is a campsite you can visit. It’s Harrison’s Pokémon Camp, and he has a variety of baby Pokémon in his camp, such as Wynaut, Pichu, Cleffa, Togepi, Budew, and Munchlax. You can also find a hidden pair of 2 Big Mushrooms to the northwest of his camp.
Over at the southeasternmost edge is TM31 Attract, a move that nearly every Pokémon with a gender can learn that can infatuate Pokémon of the opposite gender, causing the infatuated Pokémon to fail to attack 50% of the time. It can be pretty decent, although its efficiency depends on ensuring the foe is of the opposite gender, which may not always be reliable unless you’re researching their teams in advance.
The path on the far east leading up has a fight against Pokémon Breeder Debra and Pokémon Breeder Adrian that you’ll need to fight if you want to go that way. This will lead you back to the northern path. Head back to the west and you’ll be back to the patch of grass on the northern path where you originally went south from, or keep going east to continue through the route, although you really should go back to the northern path to get the items and check out the stuff there.
Northern Path
From the first fork in the road, you’ll want to go into the patch of grass, watching out for Wobbuffet. You can actually walk behind the trees to the east and follow the path behind the fence there to pick up a Shed Shell, which should allow you to switch out the Pokémon holding it from effects like Shadow Tag, Mean Look, or other similar effects.
The big house smack dab in the middle of the route is the Pokémon Nursery, where you can drop off up to two Pokémon. Unlike much older games, Pokémon here don’t gain EXP while staying here, but if you leave a male and female Pokémon in the same egg group, they’ll eventually produce an egg, which you can claim by talking to the blonde lady outside of the building (she’ll be crossing her arms when there is an egg ready to claim). You should talk to her at least once so you can quickly fly back to the Pokémon Nursery whenever you want.
Go inside of the house and talk to the Pokémon Breeder with the small purple Toxel next to her. She’ll give you the Toxel for free. It comes at level 1. She’ll also give you 5 Exp. Candy XS, which you can either use on the Toxel to help get it caught up a bit or you can use on any of your other Pokémon for 500 EXP.
You won’t be able to catch Toxel or its evolution, Toxtricity, for awhile, but at the same time Toxel itself isn’t all that great and you can find its evolutions in the wild around the time Toxel would evolve anyway, so it might be best to just wait until later in the game to catch one yourself on Route 7 rather than put up with babying the baby Toxel. There are much better Electric-type Pokémon you can use in the meanwhile.
That’s everything there is on the northern path before reaching the bridge. Keep going east and you’ll find yourself at the bridge.
Route 5 Bridge
Regardless of which path you chose, you’ll eventually end up near the massive bridge on Route 5. You’ll find some Team Yell Grunts giving a man a hard time and demanding he hand over his bike.
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After fighting both of the Team Yell Grunts, they’ll run off, and the man will give you the Rotom Bike, which will allow you to travel much faster than just running. You can hop onto the Rotom Bike at any point by pressing + or – and can press that again to dismount it. While riding the Rotom Bike, you can also press B (or L/R) to activate a temporary turbo boost that wears off after a few seconds and then takes a bit of time to recharge again.
You can visit the Wild Area at this point and talk to any of the people that sell TRs and Poké Balls and you can pay 1,000 W, 3,000 W, and then 5,000 W (for a total of 9,000 W) to power up your Rotom Bike to increase the speed that the boost recharges. You can also participate in Rotom Rallies that you can earn rewards from, including W but also a few TMs (Thunder Wave and Volt Switch) if you earn enough points.
There are a lot of varieties of hidden Feathers on the bridge. These respawn every day and can be used to raise your Pokémon’s EVs (aka base points) by a very small amount, or you can sell them for some money.
Make your way along the bridge and you’ll find Hop waiting for you there, ready to battle. He’ll at least give you a warning before starting the battle, so make sure you’re ready for him if you’re not already.
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He shouldn’t be that much more difficult to take down than the last few times you’ve fought him. He may use a Super Potion on his Pokémon to heal them up if they get weak, so watch out for that.
His starter Pokémon and Rookidee have also both evolved now, so they might pose a bit more of a threat, but should still be pretty easy to take down.
He’ll give you a Revive after you’ve beaten him and will then continue forward to Hulbury to fight Nessa.
Towards the end of the bridge, you may run into an Eldegoss floating down. It’s a good idea to fight it and catch it so you don’t have to later, as this doesn’t appear after a certain point in the game. It might be a bit tricky to catch, though, but it will save you time later.
After a little bit, you’ll reach the end of the bridge and the eastern part of Route 5.
Eastern Part of Route 5
The encounters that you run into over here are the same, but there are a few more items for you to pick up and Trainers for you to fight.
There are 3 X Sp. Atks right by Pokémon Breeder Denise that you might want to pick up. There’s also a hidden Absorb Bulb in the empty part of the patch of grass to the north, which is a single-use item that you’re not going to want to use and will want to save for player-vs-player battles or for battles where you get held items back.
Keep going to the east and fight against Office Worker Gabrielle, then continue east to reach Hulbury.