We went walking on the Old Rail Bed Trail the other day. I was actually looking for the Three Lakes/Appalachian Trail loop but apparently I didn’t go far enough. If you go past the parking area I used for about another mile you find another parking area with access to the trail I wanted. This time I found it. The entire loop takes about four hours, but I thought we could walk for 30-45 mins and then turn around and come back. The description of the trail says “After passing a swamp on the right, the trail turns left and begins to climb rather steeply”. This turned out to be an understatement. It’s extremely steep and you’re clambering over rocks all the way up. After some time we got to the top. I must say that Jackson took it pretty well although a little later I turned back downhill for a while to take a picture and when I started back up he showed definite reluctance. He didn’t baulk entirely as he had the other day but he definitely wasn’t happy about the rock climbing.
Unfortunately I now had a problem. Looking back down the trail it looked even steeper than it had going up and it’s always harder going down – it’s easier to slip an fall. So I really didn’t want to go back down that way. However, the only alternative seemed to be to continue along the trail for another 3.5 hours. So off we went. From the direction we were going I suspected that the trail would cross the Sunken Mine Road. We’d walked along there the other day so if it did we only had to turn left and walk back up to Dennytown Road. We could then walk along Dennytown back to where the car was parked (about another mile). My suspicion turned out to be correct and after losing the trail for a while (it turned sharp left and then sharp right and I missed the sharp right) we eventually came to Sunken Mine Road.
It was a nice walk if a little strenuous (particularly the long, steep uphill bit). Along the way we passed a ruined house ( First four pictures – I can’t seem to avoid the ruins even when I’m not looking for them), the remains of an old tin mine (fifth picture), and an interesting split rock (picture 6). I only fell once, although I prefer to think of it as more of a graceful slide to the ground than a fall. I just lost my footing on the abundant dry leaves on the ground. No harm done and there were no rocks there for me to hit my head on.
I thought I’d explore a bit along Dennytown Road so instead of turning right to go to 301 I turned left. Along the way we passed this large, barn like structure with lots of interesting signs. I’ve no idea what it is. I guess the owner likes signs. Following Dennytown Road in this direction eventually brings you to Oscawana Lake Road and from there we went home and collapsed. We both slept for about three hours. A piece of cod and leftover potatoes and peas for dinner and then I watched a few more episodes of “Game of Thrones”. I think I’ve watched about 20 over the last couple of days. I’m now almost up to date – two more episodes to go.
