It’ the beginning of the season so I was looking for something easy and beautiful to get myself and my mother out if the house and into the fresh air. I had chosen a trail a few days prior and then forgot what it was…. I don’t think I ended up at the same place. I thought I’d be trekking around a pretty pond. Nope!
The Cidar Mill Trail is easy to get to with ample parking, a lovely map on the board, and a series of plaques throughout explaining the wildlife in the area (though I’m betting the bobcats and bears are a lot less frequent visitors than the turtles and foxes!)
I had decided to take the Cidar Mill Trail to its end (at a different parking lot) and then come back, pick up the Sergeant’s Trail, and end up in a nice little loop going by the heron rookery. The map made this look like a piece of pie and upon seeing how wide and road-like the trails were I didn’t think this would be a problem. We read the wildlife boards on our way and then kept going until we started seeing other trails jutting off. Other trails that were not touching each other on the map. Confusing. With an assortment of red and green markers… er… travelling further still we never reached a parking lot and it was really quiet out there which freaked my mother out a little bit. She’s always worried about getting lost. We’d only walked straight so this was not really possible but nonetheless we turned around. (And why is it only when I have her with me that we get lost?!) I found the entrance to the Sergeants and off we went. We walked for a little way until we found the heron rookery and took this little offshoot to see it. Only thing is my distance vision is absolute shit at this point in my life and peer as I may out into that forest of dead trees in the swamp I could not see a nest. Turns out it was directly in front of me. I don’t think it would have been a challenge to see for people with reliable peepers.
From here we left and were met with three options. Go the way we came back up the Sergeant’s Trail, take a little connector back to the Cider Mill Trail towards the car, or wander aimlessly off on another unknown/unmapped trail going in the opposite direction. Clearly, we had to accidentally chose the latter because neither one of us have a sense of direction. We walked past another couple wildlife boards and two little bridges but the trail markers had stopped and everything was getting quiet again. I tried to get my phone to tell me where I was and what direction I needed to be heading but it was being a shit today and would only answer what town I was in. THANKS, THAT WAS NOT HELPFUL.
We walked back to the rookery and found and the four way intersection it formed. Should we go back up Sergeant’s since we knew where that trail went or try this other trail we thought was the connector? My phone, finally giving me a tiny bit of something suddenly claimed we were walking back towards the car. OK… let’s just do that then. The connector was way longer than it showed on the map. In fact the map on the board at the entrance was goddamn horrible. I don’t know if they rerouted the trails and didn’t update it or what but it did not reflect any current reality. Finally, out of breath, we managed to get back to the Cider Mill Trail and to the car. During this whole time we were the only ones out there.
Later I’d find a much better map online from a different blogger. All and all it was a decent walk, very easy with little no elevation, that seemed to be a good place to bring a gaggle of kids or maybe a leashed dog but otherwise wasn’t particularly breath taking or unique. Maybe I’m just jaded but I was sort of hoping to see the foundation of an old cider mill or something. Nothing. And the rookery was nice but we’d arrived far too early in the year to see it occupied by baby herons. We did however hit Aquatic Creations LLC on the way home.
