Adventures along the Eno River
Due to the aforementioned ridiculously nice weather, today was a day for biking adventures. Of course, leaving around noon and not getting back until 4pm may have been a bit much for my first outing of the season - I'm pretty much dead of dead now. But in terms of going new places and doing new things, this outing was a rollicking success.
Starting out, I biked straight up to downtown Hillsborough. (Ugh, hate biking in traffic.) I recently noticed they'd actually paved a bit of path along the river right near the center of town and wanted to check it out. Turns out the paved part isn't more than a few hundred yards as of yet (there are grand plans for linking up a lot of extensive river-walk type stuff but, you know, check back in a decade or two), but I found I could continue east along a dirt track, so I did.
Not too far down I saw an odd tower, but it was on the far bank, so I could investigate. Nearby on my side was this other installation with flood stage markings - a lot of nearby stuff is in trouble if it ever hits the portion of the ruler shown in the image. Hard to read, but I think that's 12-17 ft up from normal. Going up a little access stair confirmed that this is a US Geological Survey station.
Then a bit further on, kind of in the middle of nowhere, I hit the jackpot. At first I thought it was just some utility lines, but getting close I realized this rope was made for crossing. No guesses as to how long it took me to fail resisting this adventure. The rope and wires weren't strung very tightly, making it seriously wobbly. By about 1/3 of the way over I was questioning my decision, but it was easier to go forward than turn around. The second half was much harder, but I got to the far bank eventually. Turned out this was the source of my difficulty - one of the guide wires was hung up on a branch, keeping it way too high - I gave myself a little blister trying to keep a hold on it. Once over, I fixed it, making the return trip (my bike was left on the other side of course) much easier.
Past that the trail, which was already mediocre for biking (I had to lift over something every hundred yards or so), got even worse, until I was down to what were probably just deer trails. These are great for hiking but not so much for bikes. But it soon didn't matter when I ran into a fence. Getting around it on foot was actually possible (as usual, just follow the animal tracks - they know where to go), but getting the bike around dry would've been extremely tricky, so there was nothing for it but to strike out away from the river along the fence. On the way I passed an odd installation of old pipes of unknown purpose.
I came out, having no idea where I was, in the back of Cameron Park Elementary. Turned out the Eno had done nearly a U-turn while I was following it and I wasn't far from Hillsborough at all. I decided to go just a bit further east along the road to see what was there, and hey look... it's Ayr Mount Historic Site. I'd vaguely heard of it, but had no real idea where or what it was. It's an early 1800s house built by some Scottish bloke, and has a nice mile-long walking trail which I decided to try out. Here's the family graveyard with a view of the house in the background, and some flowers, just for contrast with the several inches of snow we had on the ground like five days ago.
After that, biked back into town, got myself a popsicle and a water refill (the problem with being out biking/hiking for hours is my water runs out...), and then back home. You can check out the whole directory of pics I uploaded if you like, but I've linked most of them already.
Starting out, I biked straight up to downtown Hillsborough. (Ugh, hate biking in traffic.) I recently noticed they'd actually paved a bit of path along the river right near the center of town and wanted to check it out. Turns out the paved part isn't more than a few hundred yards as of yet (there are grand plans for linking up a lot of extensive river-walk type stuff but, you know, check back in a decade or two), but I found I could continue east along a dirt track, so I did.
Not too far down I saw an odd tower, but it was on the far bank, so I could investigate. Nearby on my side was this other installation with flood stage markings - a lot of nearby stuff is in trouble if it ever hits the portion of the ruler shown in the image. Hard to read, but I think that's 12-17 ft up from normal. Going up a little access stair confirmed that this is a US Geological Survey station.
Then a bit further on, kind of in the middle of nowhere, I hit the jackpot. At first I thought it was just some utility lines, but getting close I realized this rope was made for crossing. No guesses as to how long it took me to fail resisting this adventure. The rope and wires weren't strung very tightly, making it seriously wobbly. By about 1/3 of the way over I was questioning my decision, but it was easier to go forward than turn around. The second half was much harder, but I got to the far bank eventually. Turned out this was the source of my difficulty - one of the guide wires was hung up on a branch, keeping it way too high - I gave myself a little blister trying to keep a hold on it. Once over, I fixed it, making the return trip (my bike was left on the other side of course) much easier.
Past that the trail, which was already mediocre for biking (I had to lift over something every hundred yards or so), got even worse, until I was down to what were probably just deer trails. These are great for hiking but not so much for bikes. But it soon didn't matter when I ran into a fence. Getting around it on foot was actually possible (as usual, just follow the animal tracks - they know where to go), but getting the bike around dry would've been extremely tricky, so there was nothing for it but to strike out away from the river along the fence. On the way I passed an odd installation of old pipes of unknown purpose.
I came out, having no idea where I was, in the back of Cameron Park Elementary. Turned out the Eno had done nearly a U-turn while I was following it and I wasn't far from Hillsborough at all. I decided to go just a bit further east along the road to see what was there, and hey look... it's Ayr Mount Historic Site. I'd vaguely heard of it, but had no real idea where or what it was. It's an early 1800s house built by some Scottish bloke, and has a nice mile-long walking trail which I decided to try out. Here's the family graveyard with a view of the house in the background, and some flowers, just for contrast with the several inches of snow we had on the ground like five days ago.
After that, biked back into town, got myself a popsicle and a water refill (the problem with being out biking/hiking for hours is my water runs out...), and then back home. You can check out the whole directory of pics I uploaded if you like, but I've linked most of them already.