McKinney Falls State Park

On Saturday we headed out to our local state park, which turns out to be just 10 minutes away, on the road between the flat and Rich's work.  It is quite a bit bigger than the city parks, so think we will be going to it a lot more often now.  It has a 'gnarly' hike/bike trail of 2.8 miles - there was a sign warning of steep descents and uneven surfaces, so we were quite hopeful as we started to walk round it that this might be the biking we were looking for  No luck, however, it is tarmaced all the way, and at the only hint of a gradient there was another sign advising cyclists should get off and push.  This isn't like biking in Scotland - have we been spoiled too much?!

It is another large wooded area, we really weren't expecting so many of these near/in Austin, so the walk was pretty shady, which was a great relief as it was already hot at 11am.  We also found a bouldering/climbing area, not quite sure how much is here, but it all seems to be on a large rock overhang, so again pretty shady to beat the heat.  Although by the time our climbing stuff arrives, I reckon we will be into the summer proper, and it might not provide that much relief! 

Here is a picture of both of us together - a first, I think, for the US!  This is near the bouldering, and also the 'falls' - there is not much water falling anywhere at the moment due to their drought-like conditions just now.  So no pictures of Rich assessing its runnability, unfortunately.

 

We did spot quite a lot of wildlife in the river though, an eel/water-snake, which I have to say put us off going for a swim, lots of fish and some turtles.  This was the daddy, although I'm not sure you can tell from the photo, but he was ginormous!