Skip to main content

A Gneiss Weekend

I'm trying to catch up on a slight backlog of blog posts here - this weekend away actually took place back in June, but I never got around to writing about it. To be honest our weekends away tend to follow a predictable pattern which you are probably getting used to: realise on Friday that we have a free weekend, book a last-minute motel, drive several hours to some unexplored piece of Texas, visit a state park or two, spot some wildlife, and back to the city again. But this one was somewhat different in that the piece of Texas we went to was underground.


To be precise, Longhorn Caverns State Park, a stunning subterranean selection of stalactite clusters, smooth sculpted rocks and glittering calcite crystals. Our guide was a 21-year veteran of the caves and took us on a slightly longer route so that we got to appreciate even more of the wonders. Not least of these is that the caverns are 68F year-round, providing a welcome relief from the 95F heat outside. Before air-conditioning the relief must have been even more profound, and the locals have used the caves for various purposes over the years, including a church, a Prohibition-era speakeasy and dancehall, and a gunpowder manufacturing plant during the Civil War. You can still have a wedding or party there today, which is certainly unique, if perhaps a little gloomy.





Next day we were up on top again, sailing along the Colorado River with the Vanishing Texas River Cruise. The Colorado, which is not to be confused with the more famous river of the same name running through the Grand Canyon, is the longest river entirely within the borders of Texas, running for about 600 miles down to the Gulf. In the Hill Country, where we were, it has been dammed into a series of reservoirs. Our cruise boat was chugging its way across the highest and largest of these, Lake Buchanan.
At first the guide seemed concerned only to point out the various housing developments and holiday sites around the lake shore, but as the trip went on we spotted herons, egrets, pelicans and cormorants. As the boat slipped into the narrower confines of the river proper, we rounded a corner and were suddenly confronted by a pretty waterfall, all the better for being completely unexpected. Here we paused to let off a handful of kayakers. They splashed onto the marshy shore with their boats and belongings, and the cruiser was just pulling away again when they realised they'd left their paddles on board! Whoops...








The nice pun in the title refers to the fact that around this area there are various lumps of pinkish rock sticking up out of the landscape. These are known as gneiss islands, and support unique microhabitats for rare plants and animals. In Inks Lake State Park we followed a trail across some of these "islands" and admired some of the flora and fauna, though we aren't good enough naturalists to know if we were looking at anything particularly unusual. We're naturalists enough to appreciate the contrast between hot rock and cool lake, however, and plopped thankfully into the latter after trekking across the former. Aaaaahhhh....




Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Portway: Bramcote Hills to Stanton-by-Dale

I parked in the free car park at Bramcote Hills Park and set off, naturally enough, in the direction of where I'd last been. Up some steps through the woods, along the edge with marvellous views northwards, and down past a school to pick up Moor Lane again. At that point I realised I was supposed to be walking this route in the opposite direction. Oops. Well, it didn't make much difference. It just meant that the Hemlock Stone would come at the end rather than the start. Also, I was doing a figure of eight, so I could switch paths in the middle. That sorted, I pressed on along the disused Nottingham Canal. This had varying amounts of water in it. There were good views back up to the double hump of the Bramcote Hills. Nottingham Canal Also Nottingham Canal Just before I got to Trowell garden centre, I crossed a bridge and walked across a green space to a partly built housing estate. The Boundary Brook had been aggressively re-wiggled. I'm sure it will look better in a year...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Portway: Lenton to the Bramcote Hills

It was cold. My fingers were cold, and my phone was cold too. The OS map was totally failing to find my location, and the more I prodded it the less feeling I had in my fingers, so I gave up, shoved both my phone and my chilly hands into my pockets, and set off. After all, I knew where I was. This was Wollaton Park. And the path was very obvious. Just follow the avenue of trees... ...past the deer... ...and out through the fancy gates. Crossing a busy road brought me into a neat little housing estate with unusual round street signs. This was built when Wollaton Park was sold to Nottingham City Council in 1925. The old gatehouse, Lenton Lodge, is now estranged from the rest of the park, and stands by itself next to Derby Road. The bridge used to go over the Nottingham Canal, which has now been turned back into the River Leen. The unfortunate river got shoved out of the way whenever someone came up with a new building project. This is not its original course. My hands were warming up sli...
Post a Comment
Read more

Advent 2025: Mercy

I'm going to read the whole Bible. The question came up in my homegroup recently (have you ever...?) and even though large parts of the Bible are embedded in my brain, and even though I'm pretty sure I have read all of it at some point, I have never set out to read the whole thing. My friend Dave read through the Bible several times. He was one of the most Christian men I know, in all the best ways, and he died recently. So. This is for Dave, too. Today is the first Sunday of Advent. I was going to start on December 1st, and I was going to do the obvious thing and start with Genesis, alongside the Psalms. Then I saw something that mentioned reading Luke in Advent (24 chapters: 24 days) and then I had some spare time today and thought why not? so here I am, a day ahead of myself already. Luke 1 is hardly a voyage into the unknown. In the sixth month the Angel Gabriel was sent by God,  the Magnificat and the Benedictus ... all woven tightly into the liturgies of the church. But ...
Post a Comment
Read more