Chasing the Black Powder Works

Hullo! Today we are going on a bit of a hike and hoping to get to the old black powder docks! I was sure that I had blogged about this place before but... apparently not!! Oooohhhh... wait... it was an IG Story!!!

We are going down a ravine with a creek in it... heading for the shore. Here you can see an old dam, possibly used for power generation back in the day?

You see, there was a lot of coal mining in the area back in the early 1900s and the miners needed dynamite... and it was expensive to ship out from England... so they set up a dynamite (black powder) plant in the area...

This looks like an old foundation... maybe for the water flow or a generating station?

There are a LOT of stairs going down this ravine. Luckily, they have rubber strips for folks with paws!

There are beary pretty waterfalls in here during the winter...

Pretty, yes?

One thing we are noticing in this ravine is a LOT of English ivy...

There are houses on either side of the ravine edges and obviously, the ivy has escaped the gardens. But it is beary invasive in our climate... what we want to know is... why is England not over-run with English Ivy???

Oh, we are almost down to the water!

Oh... wow... normally there's a bit of a beach here but... hmmm... is it a king tide???

Let's just check the tide app... Hmmm... yep... couldn't be much worse!

We found a spot where we could get down to the water...

Oh wo, usually there is a big sand/gravel bar over there!

We want to go the other way along the shore and there is a bit of a trail here... let's go!

Oh look... one photo with three invasive species in it!!

English ivy...

Daphne laureola aka Spurge-laurel (beary bad). It too used to be popular as an ornamental garden plant... those are never good. It's sap is toxic and poisonous!

And then Himalyan blackberry... so yummy but sooooo invasive!

Right... let's keep going...

No... wait... see... English ivy climbing the trees... eventually it will kill the tree... again, why is England not completely tree-less???

Ah-hah!! We have a spot to reach the water!

And a great view of one of the ferries! This one has been in repairs for one of its drive shafts since... July?? It was supposed to be done in October but there were problems and... it's still sitting there with no timeline of when it will be sailing again.

And we want to go... thattaway.... hmmm... somebody is either going to get a soaker or... we are going to have to find a detour...

But there is no detour along the shore... not with all those blackberries and steep slopes!

Are we stymied? No we are not! We are adventurers!! We shall prevail!

You see... there's a trail that goes up to the top of the slope (ugh... up)... and then there should be the old road that goes down further along the shore... where we want to go...

Let's go!! It's a bit slippery and muddy in spots and... we did encounter this sign...

"Private Property - No Trespassing"... right... is that going to stop us???

 TO BE CONTINUED