swimming hole - raleighparks.org

On the heels of family visiting at the end of May, my aunt offered to watch the girls while Bill and I headed out for a date night. Instead of gorging ourselves at a new restaurant, we decided to dust off our bikes and chomp away at another segment of the Neuse River Trail between the Bedford neighborhood and US-401 (followed by beers at a new brewery, Compass Rose Brewery).

For our bike ride we parked in the trail parking lot at 10888 Bedfordtown Dr in the Bedford neighborhood in North Raleigh. We followed the access road to the trail, turned right to head south, went over a small bridge and then bared to the left to stay on the main trail. This part of the Neuse River Trail is mostly flat and shaded with several bridges (including covered ones) to pass over and under. We passed several folks biking and running on the trail and even more folks canoeing and tubing down the river. Here are a few highlights along our route:

milepost 3.5 – look over the river to spot old gas or electricity lines running across an old steel bridge
milepost 4.5 – access to oxbow in the river due to years of erosion and sand deposition creating a really sweet swimming hole with sandy beach. The water flows very slowly in this spot and we saw a few younger kids fishing. I’d love to bike with the girls down here and bring a picnic and bathing suits.
milepost 5 – large bridge access to (presumably future) Wake Forest trails
milepost 6.5 – access to WRAL soccer park
milepost 7.5 – access to Horseshoe Farm Nature Preserve (still under construction, set to open August 2015)
milepost 8 – suspension bridge near US-401

For two people who hadn’t ridden bikes in at least 4 years, this was the perfect ride to ease back into things. Overall the ride was a little over 11 miles total (out and back) and provided a lot of great scenery and ideas of future outings for swimming, biking and maybe even some tubing!

Thumbs up: access to swimming hole and several parks along the way, relatively flat and shaded trail, variety of water activities available

Thumbs down: nothing to report

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This summer we explored Eno River State Park in Durham over Memorial Day weekend. Despite a 40 minute drive and a lot of preschooler crying when we first arrived because there was no playground in sight, we enjoyed the short hike across the swaying footbridge and to the river.

Eno River State Park has several different access areas and we chose the Few Fords access area at 6101 Cole Mill Rd so we could be close to the river and explore an old cabin. After a short drive through the park the road dead ended into a circular parking lot with nearby restrooms and several picnic areas. We ate a quick lunch in the shaded picnic area, admired the large pavilion (great for group picnics), and set off on the Cox Mountain Trail towards the river. The first 1/4 mile of the hike was a rather steep descent, but it was mostly graded with steps for an easier hike. With two little ones in tow, I held Ashley’s hand most of the way to prevent her from tripping over roots or steps while Claire enjoyed the scenery from sitting high in the backpack.

After we reached the bank of the river, we followed the trail over a narrow suspension footbridge that seemed like a much, much less dramatic version of the foot bridge Indiana Jones crossed in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It’s less than a 15ft drop to the river, but with large openings in the sides of the bridge I walked Ashley slowly across the bridge, trying to reiterate the importance of no jumping on the bridge.

After we crossed the bridge we turned left and continued along the trail and passed shallow swimming holes and small sandy “beach” areas where several families and dogs were enjoying the bank of the river. We continued on until we came to the wilderness cabin. There was a strange bikini photo shoot going on the deck of the cabin so we explored the inside rooms where the girls ran around and examined the window openings and log walls. After leaving the log cabin, we walked to the nearby gazebo and made it a short while longer on Cox Mountain Trail before turning around. Even though the whole loop is 3.75 miles and connects to more trails, we only made it about 3/4mile in before turning around.

On our hike back we stopped in one of the several swimming holes to splash around a bit, promising to bring the girls back again soon with bathing suits in tow. Other than over 25 miles of hiking, Eno River State Park offers fishing, camping, canoeing, educational programs, the annual Eno River Festival and more.