Judy and I recently slipped away for a couple of days
of hiking and thrift shopping in the Hillsborough area.
This has fast become one of our go-to getaways because
there are so many trails nearby and at least a couple of
good shops. Most of all, it's still got the small town feel
even though it's just outside Durham and Chapel Hill.
The first round of pictures are from the Eno River State
Park. The weather couldn't have been ordered up more
perfect. Low humidity, low 70's, and a light breeze
from the north.
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| This is the ranger's station, welcome center, and nature museum. |
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| I always call areas like this Fern Valley. |
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| Judy spotted this solitary treasure just after we began our hike. |
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| This zebra swallowtail seemed mightily attracted to Judy's shoe. It was wondrously beautiful. |
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| We approached the Eno River at Few's Ford, a 19th century pioneer crossing. |
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| A little downstream is this cool suspension bridge. Yes, it's a swinging bridge, and it swings! |
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| We had been on this bridge before, but today we would cross it to hike the Fanny's Ford Trail and part of the Cox Mountain Trail, which we had not done before. |
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| This replica of a pioneer cabin must be for the use of group campers, especially in case of rain. It is quite large with spacious rooms and no windows. |
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| Here was our turn-off for a loop trail that would follow the Eno River for some distance. |
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| We feel blessed to have the feel of the mountains this close to home. |
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| Fire Pink is one of our favorite wild flowers. This is the only specimen we saw. We had some at our old property, but the deer started eating it. |
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| We were glad to see the Eno still supports a thriving population of turtles. |
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| This red toad shows up well here, but with a couple of hops he was camouflaged in the pebbles beside a small stream. |
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| We returned via the same route. A marker showed that during Hurricane Fran the water level was higher than this bridge! |
The next day we went to the Occoneechee Mountain
Natural Area. We hiked the Chestnut Oak Trail, the
only trail there that we hadn't done before.
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| Mountain Laurel was blooming in the higher elevations. |
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| A ranger had kindly tipped us to look for "a black bear hugging a tree." I think we found it. |
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| These trees may be related to our "Jack, Will, and Tom" on the SFL Nature Trail. |
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| These are Chestnut Oak leaves. They are uncommon in the Sandhills, but I did see some in woods not far from the Farm Life campus. They are common at Morrow Mountain and Occoneechee Mountain. |
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| Our trail intersected the Overlook Trail, which looks out on an abandoned quarry, the Eno River (barely visible here) and the western area of Hillsborough. |
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| In this picture, the Eno River is in the dead center. It then veers toward the town, where a beautiful greenway follows it for a couple of miles or more. |
A nice lady we met while hiking told us about a
new "Bee Hotel" at Gold Park in town. We had been
there before, most recently on Solar Eclipse Day last
September, but the Bee Hotel had opened since then.
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| Several path tiles have been decorated by local artists. |
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| Many native plants which attract bees have been laid out here at the corner of Gold Park where the greenway trail enters. |
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| We learned that most native honeybees are solitary, rather than living in colonies. They will nest in almost any hollow wood, which explains this odd but intriguing structure. |
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| Here's your close-up. There were some bees around, but it's still under construction. |
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| This type of project is just one indicator of what a nice community Hillsborough is. |
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| This brick foundation supports a railroad bridge just a few dozen yards from the Bee Hotel. We were amazed to hear that the brickwork is from around 1850. When the bridge was being rebuilt more than 70 years later, engineers determined that they couldn't build a more sound foundation than the one that already existed. Impressive that the same could be said now, almost 100 years later! |
That's it for this Hillsborough/Eno River/ Occoneechee
Mountain trip. Aside from all these attractions, we know
of several great places to eat and a nice Holiday Inn
Express to stay at. Yes, we'll be back!
