We wake up to see "smoke" from the lower parts of Great Smoky Mountains from our motel.
How did the Smokies get its name? Well, funny you're asking...
Hiking is on the agenda today (what else :-), Smokemont Loop Trail, Bradley's Fork and Towstring Trail which together form a loop of 13.2 km. The Smokemont Loop was recommended by the Park Ranger in the Visitor's Centre yesterday, but we decided to extend it a bit.
Here is Di warming up before the hike...
Hans is correcting his knee support (ignore the pasty bit...)
The first 4 km is up, up and up (after all, this is a mountain area so no surprises there).
Di motoring on...(Hans is being kind - I was puffing and sweating and needed plenty of breaks).
And after 4km, it is down, down, down...
Beautiful scenery of course. A couple of "location shots"...
At the end of the first 3.9 miles (hiking only allowed on this trail), there is this fast running river and a foot bridge of sort in the distance.
Well, the foot bridge looked peculiar, but was very stable...
...although not exactly leveled.
On the other side of the foot bridge, we are joining Bradley Fork Trail, which is open for hikers and horse riders. Still pretty, but less scenic then before.
The last section called Towstring Trail is also open for hikers and riders, but only for very confident horses. The trail here went up again along the side of the ridge with a drop on the right side that looked quite slippery in places, but the trail must be used by horse riders too as there were horseshoe marks on the ground.
Back to the motel for a shower and then we decided to drive to Bryson City, to the west just outside of the Cherokee Indian reservation, to explore a bit. We found this train parked at their railway station, called the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad. The train doesn't run on Mondays, but were there for people to view (and perhaps get interested enough to come back another day for a ride).
One of the train carriages had these sideways benches and was open on the sides.
Time for a break. This swing was outside one of the businesses on Main Street Bryson City.
The building to the left is an old grand bank building, which would require a fair amount of TLC to get back to former glory. It was gutted inside and somebody had done a little bit of work, but no activity there today.
We find an ice cream parlor on the right side of the Main Street and it was a perfectly acceptable way to spend a now quite warm afternoon (25 degrees C) with an ice cream outside their shop, watching the world go by.
We wander a bit more in Bryson City before we decide to drive back to our motel via a visit to an IGA grocery store. This IGA had a "wall of shame" where they named and shamed people who had presented dud cheques. The check out lady said that some of these characters did even come back and tried to pay with another cheque and couldn't then understand why IGA didn't let them do it. Duuhhh...
Back to the motel for a rest and a cup of tea and later dinner, sludge in the room, a Di speciality. Today's version? Garlic butter rice with chook, peas and corn, and plenty of pepper.
Around 7.30pm we drive back to the Visitor's Centre as we have inside information from a local that elk may be spotted there.
We found this "elk"...
We wander around for a while around the Visitor Centre, where parts is a reconstructed farm from the olden days, with 100 year old buildings transported to this location. On the wall to the barn was this sign... They take their heritage seriously here.
A self portrait at dusk. The air is fresh and we enjoy being outside.
In the end, we saw no elk, but did see these two turkeys and a couple of geese.
It was a beautiful evening so we lingered until it was truly dark. Back to the motel just before 9pm. Good night.
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