Blue Ridge and Great Smoky

The Blue Ridge Parkway runs 469 miles from Shenandoah National Park in Virginia through to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina/Tennessee.

We were lucky enough to make it through the Blue Ridge and to stay in mostly government campsites along the way prior to a massive federal 'shutdown'.

The 'shutdown' is the result of a fight between the President and Congress and until it's resolved, everything federal is closed.

Employees (like parks rangers) won't be paid until the problem is sorted out.

So we were able to enter the Smoky Mountains National Park, because a highway cuts through its centre, but all access to its trails and scenic overlooks was blocked off with traffic cones.

We probably would have explored it over a couple of days had we had the chance to camp in the park and hit the trails, but we get the feeling the territory was pretty similar to what we'd encountered on the Blue Ridge.

There have been fewer more relaxing driving days on this trip than the several days we spent along this Parkway.

There were picturesque overlooks aplenty, a slow speed limit (with no angry drivers riding our tail), lovely campsites and some great trails.

The first one we tried was the Fallingwater Cascades Trail near Peaks of Otter.

It was a two and a half kilometre loop down and along a creek which tumbled into small waterfalls in places.

A bridge crossing the creek had been washed out and so the kids enjoyed the adventure of climbing over rocks to the remaining bridge portion.

Then there was the snake on the trail.

We waited fairly patiently for it to wriggle away (with Nath throwing stones nearby to urge it on).

We didn't bush bash, because we didn't know if his friends might be nearby.

On another day, we hiked to all of the overlooks on the southern side of Linville Falls (about three kilometres walking in total) and they were impressive but very popular.

Just before the Falls area we had driven over the Linn Cove Viaduct and neighbouring bridges - the last section of the Parkway to have been completed.

We also explored Mabry Mill which has a water mill plus the creeks and flumes running to it.

The boys also spent a lot of time investigating the collection of historical buildings and farming equipment.

The town of Cherokee prior to Great Smoky Mountains National Park was beautiful, with creeks running beside the main street through most of the town.

Obviously I can't say much about Great Smoky Mountains.

We only stopped once beside a stream (at the only place we found without traffic cones).

That's where we sang Happy Birthday to Nath and enjoyed some birthday cake together.