Pokémon Sword and Shield Route 9 and Circhester Bay - available Pokémon, items and trainers

Route 9 and Circhester Bay are your next destinations, and follow on from Circhester Gym in your quest through Pokémon Sword and Shield's main story.

On each page of our walkthrough like this, we'll cover any and all of the obtainable Pokémon, item locations, trainers and their teams that you might come across here, as well as walking you through any key steps of the story, puzzles or challenges along the way.

Where applicable, note that our walkthrough pages will be down into separate sections referring to each of your visits to a given location, seeing as you often backtrack or revisit various places in your quest to become Galar League Champion. And of course if there are any, we'll clearly mark any spoilers, too!

For more explainers, meanwhile, or walkthrough pages on more locations in Sword and Shield, head back to our main Pokémon Sword and Shield walkthrough and guide hub.

On this page:

Pokémon Sword and Shield: Route 9 Upper - available Pokémon, items and trainers

Route 9 is a lengthy, three-part route that starts on land before changing into Galar's only on-water route, before finishing up in a small bit of grassland to the sout, outside the town of Spikemuth.

The start of Route 9 is simple enough. Head south from Circhester across the bridge - where there are some spots to fish and surf (make a mental note to come back here when you can travel on water) and continue past some grass and wild Pokémon, until you encounter Team Yell.

They'll be harassing another doctor - turns out it's the same doc from before, who gave you the Rotom Bike upgrade. This time, if you beat the Team Yell Grunt, he'll upgrade your bike so it can ride on water!

You can now travel on any water in the game where there's a point to access it (as in, without a ledge or fence or other obstacle in the way). Just whip out your bike and it'll automatically convert to the on-water version as you ride onto it, amphibious-style!

It's worth nipping back up to the top of Route 9 quickly, by the bridge, and riding left until you see a place to come ashore on the near side. There's a great TM there and a standalone encounter with a high-level Glalie, if you fancy catching it!

After that, head south, onto the water from where that doctor is, to the Circhester Bay part of Route 9.

Available Pokémon

Available Items

Trainers and Battles

With it finally in the wild, here's how to start the Crown Tundra DLC and our full Pokémon Crown Tundra walkthrough. Plus, here's how to catch Calyrex, Glastrier and Spectrier, the Regieleki and Regidrago puzzle solution and Regirock, Regice, Registeel locations, details on how to catch Legendary Birds Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres in the Crown Tundra, the Ultra Beasts and Necrozma adventure, Dynamax Adventures, including the legendries you can catch on these adventures, and the new Crown Tundra Pokédex and returning Pokémon explained. For Isle of Armor players, here's how to find the Slowpoke, where to find Max Mushroom locations, and how to get Kubfu, become best friends and evolve it, plus all Diglett locations too! For the base game, here's info on the ability to transfer Pokémon to Pokémon Home, the Wild Area, lists of all TM locations and TRs, all Galarian forms and finally our main Pokémon Sword and Shield walkthrough for the whole game.

Pokémon Sword and Shield: Circhester Bay - available Pokémon, items and trainers

At the very top of Circhester Bay, before you head out onto the wider water, go to the far left of the bit of land where the doctor who gave you the bike upgrade is and surf left from there, to a dead end with an item.

Now, go back to the land and head out onto the route proper. When you're on the water you can bear left or right - both ways get you to the end of the route, but you'll want to explore both directions too as there are plenty of items, Pokémon and trainers to encounter.

Going left, there are two hidden items along the top left wall, and item on land in a small alcove on your right, and over on the far left two small sandy beaches. The smaller one has one trainer and one hidden item. The larger, lower down, has a pair of swimmers, one of whom will give you TM45 Dive. There's also an item just behind them.

Go further south and you'll get to a less icy area, where there's another item on the far left, TM22 Rock Slide, and now you can head off the south of the route or circle round to the right to collect more items and battle more trainers.

To the right, starting at the top, there are three hidden items along the icy walls as you work your way south, clockwise. There's another trainer on the icy beach, and the central land area - accessible from either side, also has a camp, two more idden items and another trainer. There's also some grass here where you can encounter some more rare Pokémon.

Heading south, on the right, from there, go over to the far east (right) of the route for a tiny bit of sandy beach with a green sign and an item: a Protector, which is used to make Rhyhorn evolve into Rhyperior.

There's a trainer by the red sign, more centrally, and south of that there's an another sandy beach in the bottom right with a trainer, berry tree and a hidden item in the water to the right of that.

Back in the centre, there's a bit of land with one more trainer and hidden item, and that's everything on the route! Head south to the beach, where Out Spikemuth, the final part of Route 9, begins.

Available Pokémon

Available Items

Trainers and Battles

Pokémon Sword and Shield: Route 9 outer Spikemuth - available Pokémon, items and trainers

Outer Spikemuth is the bottom end of Route 9 that, unsurprisingly, sits on the outskirts of the town of Spikemuth. It has two trainers, a berry tree, and several hidden items. This is also the only spot you can catch Dhelmise, which is a very rare overworld appearance in the long grass, so spend some time finding it here!

Available Pokémon

Available Items

Trainers and Battles

Story-wise, when you head towards Spikemuth you'll see that the entrance is shut, an there's seemingly no way in. Marnie will appear though, and after a battle she'll show you another way in - to the south - so you can enter the town itself.

That's everything here for now, so continue on to Spikemuth for the next steps in your quest, or cycle back to our main Pokémon Sword and Shield walkthrough and guide hub for all the other pages we have like this.