our trip To Cape Split
Now there is a gap between the last picture and the next picture... how long you ask? Try approx 1.5 to 2 hours. Why you ask? Allow me to explain. Laura and I looked at some websites about Cape Split. The trail difficulty was rated as easy/moderate and there were two trails... the shore and the inland route. The inland route was the easy trail and the shoreline was the harder trail. We discussed this before we left and I thought that I would get some better pictures on the shoreline and Laura thought it might be more scenic... the problem was that the trail eventually goes away leaving you to fend for yourself...
After an hour the walk through the woods became work... I stopped taking pictures because the trail was narrow, winding, and had like a zillion trees fallen across it making it hard and slow to navigate. I figured that me stopping to take pictures would just slow us down too much. I figured that we were going at about .5km/hour at this point... it would take us 16 hours to get to the summit and back. The last picture that you see Laura smiling in was the last time she smiled for a long long time... I knew it was a bad sign when we started seeing as many "clawed footprints" as human shoe prints... it got to the point where we stopped talking altogether except to say "is that a trail?"... "Well what about that one over there?"... The kicker was when we came to a river that didn't have a bridge across...
We walked upstream to a place where we could cross. The problem was that to cross where we did we had to go inland to go upstream. We lost sight of the shore and the path. Laura decided to get a view from the top of a nearby hill to see if we could see the path. We couldn't. This is where it gets worse... I came up with the brilliant idea to go down the hill towards the shore... my logic was that we would have some bearings if we went to the shore... the smart thing to do would have been to go back down the hill to the river and follow it back, but stay on the side we were already on... we would easily get back to the shore/path this way... but I am a man and therefore do not think all the way though this logic. I suggested that we just go down the hill directly towards the shore. I will say at this point Laura was a good sport about this in the end... evidenced by the fact that no-one had to send out search and rescue to fetch my body... not that I think they would be able to find it when she was done with it.
We headed down the hill... as you read this I would like to say that you have no idea how thick the brush is when there is no path. It was awful... as we went through (still not really talking) I was cursing under my breath as I got cut up by thorns and whipped in the head by branches. I looked back to Laura who was more cut up than me. I could tell she was not pleased... it became verbally evident when after walking through the brush for about 15 minutes she calmly turns to me and says, "I would just like you to know that I am not going to be happy when we get out of here". The only things I could think of at that point were: 1. If we don't find our way out I'm going to end up as a corpse... and 2. Even if I live to see the end I will still wind up as a corpse...
Luckily (for my sake) we came across a path by the shore and continued on our trip. The path was more narrow and more cumbersome/winding than before. It was bad. We still weren't talking. we saw somebody’s jacket on a tree, so we knew we weren't the only crazy people that took this route. During this stretch of the trail I asked Laura if she knew anybody who did this trail. She said that Jesse from work recommended it... he said it was worth the view. The two of us agreed it had better be worth the view at the end... and then I asked Laura to remind me to kill Jesse if we ever got back (joking of course). Laura went on to say that a manager at work wanted to take his kids on the trail, one of the kids is 2 years old. We said to each other that if two 20 something year olds can't do it, how could a little kid be expected to do it?
Eventually the trail opened up a bit and lead inland so we thought we were on the right track. But we weren't really... in the wide part we managed to walk side-by-side for a change and resumed talking to each other a little. Then the trail ended abruptly... there was some discussion about what to do at this point... Laura wanted to go one way, me another... She heard water and so we went on... without any path mind you. Suddenly Laura heard voices... suddenly I saw people... I started yelling to Laura "People! People! I see people!"... as she was coming over I saw more people and I say "More people, there are more people!". I would like to have seen the look on the faces of these people as they saw Laura and me come out of the woods... These people had taken the inland trail, which was in perfect upkeep... while we had taken the hard blaze your own path route. Laura and I just suddenly popped out of the woods onto the trail all giddy because we saw people. We were cut, bleeding, muddy, sweating like you wouldn't believe and tired as all hell.
At this point Laura and I didn't shut up as we gabbed away to each other because we were so happy we found our way out and onto the trail. Now we can continue on with the slideshow...
This is where we came out of the woods... note the lack of trail
Back on track for the summit
Laura pretty tired
A big puddle that littered the path
Looking down the cliffs... almost there
At the edge
Near the end
An airplane from Greenwood
Laura's wounds... Laura's arms were quite cut up as well
My wounds
Parrsboro maybe?
This is actually an island jetting out of the sea. You cannot access it.
Small Islands
A much-deserved beer
Laura and I (all happy now). This is us at the summit. There were a lot of people there... all of whom took the right trail. We must have looked out of place caked in mud, bleeding, sweating, and cut to ratshit. Nobody else was sweating. One couple even smelled of really nice perfume/cologne...
This is the start... we should have gone right, but we went left and you know the rest.
This was an extremely fun trip... the issues with the costal path made it all the more fun... we actually laughed about how easy the trail was and how there was a lack of challenge on the way down. It took us 3 hours to get to the top and only 1 hour and 45 mins to get back.