Monday, April 14, 2008
The Pocket
This weekend I took time off from the computer and went for a short "hike" with Wife and Daughter to a place known as The Pocket. Nessa (my far superior half) informed me that this place blooms like crazy once a year, and people come from miles around to see what seem like carefully arranged, lovingly planted displays but which are in fact completely wild. I'm not really into flowers — I hardly know one from another — but a secret part of me appreciates them although I rarely say so out loud. I'm not like Dick from the Famous Five, who shouts out the train window, "Look at all the lovely primroses!" Sorry, but that kind of exclamation should be reserved for girls. If boys are going to mention flowers, they should casually comment something like, "Hey, look at the bright colors, pretty cool, eh?" and then change the subject to something like fast cars or super-charged computers.
That said, I like nature and always like to see lush green grass, healthy trees, and dabs of bright color under a deep blue sky. Forests are my favorite places to walk, especially where there are ponds or rivers or, better still, clear mountain streams. The sound of burbling, gushing water is very relaxing to me, and I wish the stream we had out back was more substantial than it is; it only runs when there's a really heavy downpour, and then it's a nasty muddy color. No, I like ever-flowing, crystal clear streams that look good enough to drink, are shallow enough to wade in, and fast running enough that it churns and bubbles over rocks on its way down the mountain.
I was pleased to see that The Pocket had just that kind of stream. It's only about 30 minutes from the house, yet somehow we've never been there before. There's another similar place called Cloudland Canyon, which is a far bigger deal with much longer walks and truly impressive waterfalls, but The Pocket is neat because it's tucked away and not even sign-posted; if you don't already know it's there, well, you won't know it's there! If you follow the road out past La Fayette, there's a very quaint old barn on the right — one of many such barns, but I thought this one was particularly old and quaint...
Past this barn there's a narrow turn-off called Pocket Road. This road reminds me a little of some of those lanes you find in England, the one-car-width picturesque lanes that wind between old thatched cottages and masses of tall hedges. In hillbilly country, there are no thatched cottages but instead a mish-mash of varying styles of houses; some old and beat-up, some new with gleaming white siding, and occasionally a brick house or two. But all have plenty of land around them, some well looked after with carefully mowed lawns and neat hedges, and others with piles of junk and various old cars rusting away.
Pocket Road turns into a gravel track that goes for maybe a mile before ending at the foot of a mountain. From here on its walkies only. As soon as we started walking, we crossed a slow-moving stream and I immediately thought, "Mmm, looks almost good enough to drink." The trail actually meanders around and ends up following the stream all the way up to the top of the small mountain. It starts off as simple, gentle slopes of forest, with all the wild flowers people come from all over to see. I wasn't all that impressed myself. Perhaps I'd just got the wrong mental image in my head, a Blytonesque canvas of brilliant color... but the reality is quite a bit more mundane. Nice, yes; if we hadn't known about the flowers, we'd have thought, "Gosh, what a lot of flowers!" But spectacular? Hmm, not really. Although Dick might have said, "Ooh, how lovely!"
Still, it was a nice walk. The boarded walkway (for wheelchair access) soon ended and became your average dirt track, which in turn became a steep, far more difficult path. It followed the stream all the way up, twisting around trees and roots and rocks, sometimes right on the bank of the stream where one foot wrong could mean soggy pants. I like this kind of walk, but we had Lily with us and she needed a lot of help — because for some reason, three-year-olds don't look where they're going!
The waterfall at the top came gushing over the cliff onto a number of rocky "steps" that would be ideal picnic ground if you deliver the picnic hamper ahead of time by helicopter. Lily of course loved the water, and being a kid had to crawl around in it and get wet. (She's wearing a football kit because we'd just come straight from a soccer field where she'd played her first actual game.)
I did take some pictures of the waterfall, but they came out rubbish, sorry. The brilliant sunlight glinting off the sparkling water was evidently too much for the camera and it all looked a bit Chernobyl-ish. Oh well. Perhaps it's best to imagine it for yourselves though. Just think of a hundred foot high cliff face, with ledges all the way up the side that you can climb up onto (if you're stark, staring mad) and a waterfall pouring down into a churning rock pool. Behind that waterfall is probably a cave with a moss-covered floor, but I couldn't see the entrance because of the curtain of ferns. However, I thought for a moment that I saw four kids' faces peering through the gushing water...
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