Some time back, a couple of our neighbors had mentioned a walking trail in our neighborhood, pointing out roughly where it began. We hadn't had the time to investigate before, but with the current blast of warm temperatures and the threat of cooler ones coming in a few days, we decided to don our Indiana Jones gear and set off into the depths of the forest to see what we could find. What we found and saw was awesome.

It was a beautiful sunny day, perfect for a spot of hiking. On the flip side, the mix of sun and shadow cast by the trees makes for difficult photography - the shadows can be super dark, or the lighter parts completely blown out. Nevertheless, we set out on our adventure, cameras in hand. The start of the trail would be easy to pass by if you weren't looking for it, but we were...

We came to a fork in the trail, and opted to head right and see where it led us. Not too much farther on, we came to the end of this section of the trail and found this:

As we later discovered, this was the top of Rockhouse Falls. The pictures don't really do it justice from this side and top of the waterfall, but we stood there in awe - we couldn't believe we had stumbled upon such a large waterfall just down the road from our house. We did our duty of photo taking, all the while telling each other to "be careful" and "hold on" - as you'll see shortly, it's a big drop...

So, having been careful, held on and not slipped, we traced our steps back to the previous fork in the trail and headed down the other direction. Again, it wasn't far before we came across the next point of interest - the stream that feeds the waterfall. To our keen eyes, it looked suspiciously like there were stepping stones to cross the stream. So, we crossed the stream...

Now, for those of you with a decent internet connection, you can check out the next section of the trail and where it leads by watching the video below. It gives a better perspective of the trail than the photos alone. I wouldn't recommend trying to watch it on your iPhone on 3G as it'll probably blitz your data allowance for the month...

If you watched the video, you'll have seen that when we emerged from the undergrowth, we were greeted by this...

How awesome is that?! And then just to the right in the image above, we got our first proper look at Rockhouse Falls.

We thought all this was pretty cool, and hung around checking out the rock face and watching the water pour down the fall for quite some time. However, the trail hadn't come to an end yet, and we needed to press on. We headed off, with the fall leaves catching our attention.

Just past the sign above, from which we learned that we were on Rockhouse Cliff Spur Trail, we encountered another fork - the last time we encountered one of these and headed right it didn't turn out so bad, so we chose that direction again. Check out the video below to see the trail (this one's not as long as the last video).

The trail led us to the bottom of the fall. As you can see, all that "being careful" at the top of the waterfall turned out to be a wise move...

The power of the water crashing down any waterfall is impressive, and this was no exception. We figured that was about it and prepared to head back... But wait, is that the trail continuing down the hill? It was, and we found this at the bottom.

A bridge? Seriously? Wasn't expecting that, but we crossed it, checking out the up and down stream views along the way. Being the careful, responsible, wise young folk we are, not only were we sure to not slip and slide down the waterfall, we'd also been vigilant and keeping an eye out for other dangers, like bears or snakes... Yup, like the one below that was just waiting to get stood on.

I believe this is a Garter snake, but if you know different then let me know. You can read more about the Garter snake by clicking here.

And that was finally the end of the trail. We ended up walking back the long way round, again checking out the fall leaves on what was a stunning day for our adventure In The Wild.

As always, if you haven't signed up for our free email updates, you can do so in the bottom right of every page. By signing up, you'll receive occasional updates and extra stuff from In The Wild Photography via email. Or use our RSS feed to be notified of new blog posts - check here for details.

{jcomments on}