A week after visiting Valley Garden and the Ashland Nature Preserve, we decided to up our game, and head for the Brandywine Creek State Park, in the same general area of northern New Castle County in Delaware. The creek comes down out of Pennsylvania and meanders through the area, finally emptying out into the Delaware River somewhere in Wilmington. It’s a large park, with about eight or ten different hiking trails that you can take. We paid our out-of-state admission ( eight bucks! ) and parked. We deciided on a trail that would take us down a forest trail towards the creek, then follow the creek for a bit before branching back and heading for the park HQ where we parked.
Down the Woods Trail – very dense, lush old growth forest, almost Jurassic Park-like. Huge oaks, maples, tulips. etc. The trail was cobbled, with tree roots there to trip you up ever couple of feet if you didn’t watch where you were going. We followed it down for about a mile or so before we came up on the Creek.
The Brandywine was slow moving and muddy from the recent rains. After a bit we came upon a huge sycamore with branches that spread out for yards in every direction. We followed the creek until it came to the small spillway where an old grist mill had been.
We walked out along the bridge that paralleled the spillway, and I got some shots around there. There was another parking area at this end of the park, where people could take a hiking trail that ran along the opposite bank of the Creek from where we were. We were hoping to use the restroom advertised, but it was locked. Hmmmmm
Unfortunately, a quick check of the map showed that we appeared to have missed our turn to head back up to the Park HQ where we were parked, and we now found ourselves at the spot in the park that was the most geographically remote from said HQ. We didn’t fancy walking back along the creek and then UP the slope we’d come down on through the woods, so we trudged up the roadway towards the park entrance. There were a few nice homes along the road, and I got some pics in between the World Cup Rallye that was evidently taking place on the road, as evidenced by the constant stream of SUVs and such whizzing by at 60 miles per.
We finally got back into the park, and the heat and humidity was starting to take a toll on our old, pretty out of shape bods. We followed the trail up hill towards a Hawk Watching location and finally figured out how to get back to the Park HQ. A tiring day, and a long sweaty walk, but we survived.
