I've walked the trail north from Topsail Beach a few times but only out about 45 minutes before turning back when the trail seemed to peter out. The first part of the trail is easy through mature trees with the odd boulder that has rolled down off of Topsail Head.
Further along the trail gets a little less defined as here here there's a substantial outcrop of massive quartz.
One of the huge boulders along the trail that sloughed off of Topsail Head.
The trail skirts the edge of the sea where off and on I can see where we normally kayak.
At this point I was on new trail for me. The trail starts to go uphill flanked by fir trees that at places form tunnels by the overhead branches.
Well above the sea the fall colours are everywhere.
Trees are left to compost back into the soil to feed the next generation of trees.
The land flattened out in brilliant sunlight.
After almost 90 minutes I broke out of the trail and onto a well traveled ATV trail. I knew I was getting close to something familiar as I could hear a lot of water running. Five minutes later I was back ...
... at a familiar place where the river runs into the sea, the sea where we had paddled along just two days ago. Then there was more water running and it was chocolate brown. Check out my kayak blog for that picture and my sense of coming full circle.
