The Moose Not The Mouse - Day 12 - Mountains and Moose!

[roonlou]

11th May 2009, Monday

Good nights sleep, apart from waking up every now and then due to cold drafts. Maybe too much information here, but Roo and I sleep nude, and the cold drafts coming into the bed were enough to disturb our slumber. The last temperature we’d seen in the car last night at around 8.30pm was 4 degrees and I can’t think it got warmer through the night. Also, it’s good to note, Roo is a professional blanket thief, I steal bed space he takes the warmth.

Sore heads this morning due to medicinal whisky applied to empty tummies, so lounged around with coffee and juice till feeling more human. The beautiful sunny skies outside also helped to lift our mood.

This accommodation, even though dated but well loved has some modern services, amongst these include cable TV, telephone and Wi-Fi – except we’re too far along the “street” to receive that in our cabin. It also has some odd features, flicking lights, uneven flooring (I don’t think it was due to the whisky!), the noisy air heater “doorman” and the fact you have to wait a full 5 minutes to get any hot water into the premises. This makes waiting in the freezing bathroom for a shower a very long experience. But even though you have to wait, and the shower is tiny, it’s a very good shower – but a long way from our luxury Inn by the Sea spa suite.



Today’s plans consisted of doing a lap of the White Mountain National Park, covering around 120 miles and taking in many natural sites and towns in the area. We’d planned to take our time, stopping where we spotted things of interest along the way. We sat on the deck of the main office checking out some details on our laptop, the only place where a strong enough signal for the Wi-Fi worked.



We headed out in our grubby Suzuki van and off out to our first detour, the Basin. It was a brilliantly sunny day, not a cloud in the sky – still a bit chilly but defiantly had the potential to get warmer. The National Park is a great place to explore, everything is well signposted, and there are places to stop, and go “potty” along the way.

Seeing the signs for the Basin, we parked up, wrapped up and headed the short walk under the underpass to this natural phenomenon. There were a few people about, but we were pretty much left on our own to explore as we headed along the trail through the woods and along the river till we reached our goal.



The Basin is a circular 30ft wide hole 15ft deep that’s been carved into the rocks by a large and constant whirlpool; it’s fed from the river above and a small waterfall provides the momentum for this white water activity. The water is really blue, and it’s amazing how smooth the sides of the Basin are where nature has been busy.



By now a coach tour had arrived, its weird seeing lots of people as we’re so used to our own company by now. So fearing stranger danger we headed back to the car. There are lots of ski resorts here, and when we’d visited before the cable cars were open so you could ride to the peaks of the various mountains, but the typical trend of everything being shut was continuing, and the mechanical lifting devices stood silently in hibernation. The views along our route were outstanding, and seemed to stretch into the horizon forever, very green and lush, very rugged and mountainous in others.

[roonlou]

We had wanted to ride the Cog Railway, but this of course was only open at weekends, and we’d arrived too late yesterday. But, we decided to check it out anyway, and took the signposted turning up Mount Washington towards the closed attraction. Mount Washington is the tallest mountain in New England its snow capped peak stands a mighty 6288ft. The Cog Railway was built in the early 1800’s and uses either steam or bio-diesel trains to push a passenger laden caboose steadily up the slopes and then back down again. At arrival to the Base Camp Station, we were greeted by fantastic views of the Mount, and a very brave local fox. I have to say, I found the fox more entertaining than the scenic views, and the cute little animal was so obliging for a photo shoot.









We carried on our travels through more little towns and more outstanding scenery until we arrived at the town of Glen. Feeling super hungry we stopped at a Dairy Queen for a bite to eat. We enjoyed very tasty Flat Iron BLT sandwiches with salad and onion rings – washed down with a super sickly Brownie Chocolate Explosion sundae. The lady serving us was shocked that we’d never been to a DQ before, and took the opportunity to show us all the frozen ice-cream cakes they make.

We passed through a pretty flat valley to arrive at our next location, it looked like a smaller version of the Valley Floor at Yosemite that we’d visited last spring. We arrived at a site named Cathedral Ledge, a 1000ft shear ledge that enthusiastic climbers enjoy conquering. Fortunately for us lazy travellers, there is also a road you can drive to its peak. Now, bear in mind, we’d had no phone reception for the whole of our vacation, here on the sunny peak of this ledge we had full reception! Phoned my mum to celebrate, who rather spookily had been worried as she’s been convinced I’d been to the hospital during this visit. She was kind of right with my over reacting doctor and the pink eye incident of last week – she may be a little psychic.







After enjoying soaking in the views and the warm sun, we headed back down and to our next detour. A place named Diana’s Bath.



After parking in a large gravel car park nestled in the forest, we followed the signs into the woods for the 1/2mile walk down to the “bath”. We passed a few people on route, some with very soggy dogs, still having no idea what we were about to see.

The sound of roaring waters drew us towards a large expanse of river consisting of water falls, fast running water and shallow pools, studded with huge rocks and boulders making ideal stepping stones up across and through the river. It was very pretty as on quite a high vista, with magnificent views of mountains in the distance, and the river continuing on its twisty route down through the forest. We had great fun climbing up and over all the boulders trying to avoid falling and wet feet! This place is apparently a popular swimming hole in the summer months, and I could see what great fun it would be.

[roonlou]

We explored further up the river to see even more of this beautiful area before heading back to the car park, passing by a few squirrels, cute chip monks and a red headed woodpecker hiding in the forest. Back on route we soon entered the Kancamagus highway, much different to view today as aided by the brilliant sunshine. Unfortunately I missed a lot of the scenery as the winding roads caused my heavy eyelids to get the better of me, and we teleported magically back at our weathered cabin.

Kicking back with a beer, we sat outside in the sunshine for a while, checking out sights we still wanted to see, before disappearing indoors to our much warmer cabin for a little Food Network. Roo now took the opportunity to nap for half an hour with his head on my lap, while the TV taught me how to make doughnuts.

Fugally we’d brought the rest of our spicy spaghetti bolognaise with us from our last cabin by the pond, simply made a foil pouch and froze it the night before. So, in but minutes we had a very tasty dinner to enjoy, with no fear of unwanted insect additives.

The sun was starting to get low in the skies, and as it was still so cloudless and nice, decided to drive, yes more driving, to the Bretton Woods as we’d done the night before to spy for Moose. We were luckier tonight, and whilst creeping along the roads, we spotted a large male Moose enjoying some aquatic vegetation from a road side pond. We pulled over and got some great photos of this shy and rather noisy munching beast. No more moose to be spotted, but we did see a wonderful sunset and even spotted another red headed woodpecker.







We’d left the porch light on outside our cabin, and arrived back just before night had fully descended. It was around 9 degrees, so much warmer than last night, and our tall hot air “doorman” hardly fired into action for the rest of the evening as our cabin was nice and warm.

We relaxed on the sofa after a hot shower, with yet more cooking related TV, whisky and a cup of sleepy tea, before, with pyjamas on (not repeating last night’s chilliness), we snuggled into a little bed listening to the river for a good nights sleep.

[Guest]

Amazing photos!

[Guest]

really enjoying your trip reports.

[Guest]

Great photos - the fox looks like he's posing for you!

[Guest]

Another great report with lovely photos.

[DIBBadmin]

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