21.08.2012 – 21.08.2012  27 °C

Today we spent the day out in the Great Smoky NP. The park itself is not all that large, and we were able to drive around the whole park in less than a day. Of course, we didn’t have the time to truly appreciate the park but we did get a taste.

Firstly, the park although not being large, is popular. It actually gets more visitors per year than any other NP in America. So our drive today was fairly slow, the whole day we were driving in convoy with other cars! The fact that our drive was slow was actually quite nice as it forced us to spend more time looking at our surrounds, which were more of the same, vibrant green- the deciduous trees and slate grey- rocks.

After arriving in the park we headed straight to have some morning tea (with some small bighty insects for company) before we headed for an area called Cades Cove. This area is now a ghost town with the last people leaving the town fifty odd years ago (when the NP was declared). The town has been preserved just as it was when people lived here. Our first stop was to see this 1900-esq Baptist church. The interesting thing about the church is that it has an internal ceiling. I can only imagine how hard it would have been to lay a hardwood ceiling. The church yard behind also had some surprises, the most recent resident was laid in the late 90s.. considering no-one has lived in this town for nearly fifty years…. It is also home to civil war heroes and many generations of Cades Cove hillbillies 🙂

From the church we spent more time driving around and eventually arrived at an intact house and barn setup. The house was a good mile off the main road, I can’t imagine why the owner built his home so far from the road.. The wander to his house was a nice walk though, thru forests and open glades. I was fortunate enough to see a deer nice and close to the path so fingers crossed I got a decent shot.. The house itself was a two roomed affair with side rooms (I’m guessing kitchen and store rooms). Made of rough hewn logs.. Pretty chilly I’m thinking in the winter!

Finished our drive around the old town site by checking out the intact grist mill and some other period houses. The grist mill is the oldest surviving structure in the NP. You can tell the old mill has been here for awhile just from the quantity of moss that calls the in use waterwheel home! We briefly wandered around the town site. I guess for us, we’ve seen so much of this sort of thing already in the States (and here in Virginia) that we really only gave it a cursory glance.

On top of the fact we had seen plenty of old town sites, we were starting to feel pretty peckish so we headed out of the Cades Cove and back to our smoko spot for lunch. The picnic area was pretty busy so we had to miss out on having out lunch next to the brook and instead sit next to the parking lot. The bighties were worse at lunch so our lunch was a fairly rushed affair.

Our afternoon was spent driving across the mountains and down into the Cherokee Indian Reserve. It actually didn’t take us too long to get over the mountains and once you are on the other side you’re in Nth Carolina. Cherokee was pleasantly surprising. Most reservations we’ve entered during our travels have felt quite poor. This one is quite prosperous with many hotels and even a decent looking casino (many res’s have casinos but this one actually looks inviting). We by-passed the town (because we are going to come back tomorrow) and continued south west towards the town of Bryson City. The city (which is actually a small country town) is our base for the next couple of nights whilst we go out white water rafting on the Nantahala River.

First job, accommodation hunting! We checked a couple of places and ended up staying at the Sleep Inn (good beds and clean) at the reduced seniors rate (what am I going to do when M&D go home and I have to pay full price???). Once we had checked in and got ourselves sorted we decided to go for a quick spin out to the Nantahala Outdoor Centre to check out where we would be white water rafting the next day. We had been told the NOC was about a ten minute drive…. Not so! It is a ten minute drive from the centre to the raft launch place but it is a forty minute drive from Bryson City to the NOC!!! It was so far away that for a while I thought we were going in the wrong direction! Once we got out to the river we worked out why NOC is so famous in these here parts… The setup is huge! They must send hundreds of tourists down the river each day in peak season. We arrived right on closing time but we managed to get the low down on our expedition tomorrow! Should be fun!!!

Dinner tonight was a tasty stir fry concoction cooked by our one pot wonder D out by the pool before I ended my day doing what I do best, blog on the internet! (Here’s hoping I appreciate all of the work I’ve put in these past few years when I’m old and grey!!!)

Song of the Day– James Taylor, Fire and Rain (one of my favourite songs!)