This week I was back to hiking. My destination was Goose Creek State Park located in far eastern North Carolina. I had a book on CD to listen to for my long drive but I didn't get much listening time. Not 15 minutes after I left my house, the work phone rang. Yuck! I spent the next 3 hours on the phone with work, but I won't get into that. This is important because in all the work chaos, I somehow missed my road. I kept thinking "I should be there by now." Was I lost? Of course not! I don’t believe in get lost; I just take the scenic route. Finally, I arrived in Belhaven. I pulled out the map and realized I had missed the road probably 30 minutes ago. “Stupid work,” I thought. So I took a different route to head back southwest a bit and found the park.
As I drove in, I knew I would like this park. The road into the park went through a swamp. Cool! I’ve never seen too many swamps. I parked and started down the first path I saw. I took the Live Oaks trail. I saw many, many birds throughout the day. The first was a beautiful brilliant red cardinal. I also saw a red headed woodpecker and some other birds that shall remain nameless (mainly because I don’t know what they are). I continued on to find a cemetery. How many cemeteries have you ever seen in a State Park? Odd, but interesting. I stopped and visited the 4 dead people buried there, took their picture, and said goodbye. It wasn’t long before I came to the water. What an amazing view! You have the giant oak trees covered with the very mystical Spanish moss right beside and hanging over the Pamlico River. Along the shore there are hundreds of pieces of driftwood and just a few feet into the water are old stumps from past trees. The views are brilliant! The edge of the river is like the beach with sandy banks. I wish I had had more time to just lounge in the sand and soak up the sun. But instead I starting gathering up driftwood. I fell in love with all of the neat pieces. Yes, technically it is stealing and it is illegal to take anything from a state park, but the driftwood is just so cool. I found 2 pieces that were 12 to 16 inches long. I threw my sweatshirt over them and hurried back to the car. I made it half way and saw the park ranger at the bathroom. I couldn't just stroll past with my stolen goods. So I put them down to wait. Then some people came by and I didn’t want to look suspicious so I did a loop past my car and dropped off the driftwood I had stuck in my pack. Back to the shore for more driftwood I went. I stopped on the way back to the car for the second time and picked up the large pieces. I saw some people walking in front of me and when they got to the parking lot they lingered. So I hid the driftwood behind a tree and decided to go hiking.
I took the Goose Creek Trail. This meandered through the woods. There must have been a fire at some recent point. You could smell the burnt wood and see the singed trees and pine cones. I followed the trail for about 1 mile before coming to the swamp. The swamp was cool. It smelled nasty of course, but it is still neat. The swamp was filled will cypress trees and their knees. Knees, I learned, are sort of like a root system that stabilizes the trees in the unstable swamp bottom. These knees never sprout or grow into trees though. The water in the swamp was black and you just expect to see Swamp Thing or a giant alligator crawl out of it. A lizard scampered past my foot and down through the crack in the walkway as I almost took a heart attack. I continued through the swamp and to the end of the trail. Then I took the Flatty Creek trail to a look out – a wooden platform that overlooked the Palmico River. I lounged around here for a bit. I sat on the dock and watch as the hundress of tiny fish swimming around. I jumped as I heard a splash. I looked up and saw a big giant fish jump out of the water. It must have been 3 feet long. Ok...well...that might be a fish tale, but I'm sure it was at least 2 feet long. Haha!None of the trails were loops, so I headed back the way I came. When I got to the end of the trails, I went back to snatch up my driftwood. It had been a several hour event but I got the driftwood into my trunk and headed for home.
I would have added more pictures, but this is what happens when you forget to put the memory card in your camera and you can only take 10 pictures. However, cell phones are handy for this until you can't figure out how to get the pictures from your account to your computer. Why do they make it so hard?
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