Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Weekend at Helen

Date: 17-Jun-2007
Place: Helen, Northern Georgia.

It’s been only a week since I am here in this part of US, so the enthusiasm to explore around is very high. Add to it, a bunch of travel bugs, and plans to near by places start emerging. At 2:30 a.m. my friend called me up to confirm if I would join them on a trip to Helen. So it was decided that we would start early next day.

Helen is a one of the smallest towns I have ever seen. It’s situated in northern Georgia, on the banks of the river Chattahoochee. As per Wikipedia, the population of the town is only 430!!! But the place is full of tourists, who are there for the water tubing, hiking to the start of the waterfall, or just lazing around on the small beach side they have created on the banks of the river.

A specialty of the place is that the architecture is distinctly alpine. It’s been designed to be like a Bavarian town in the hills of Georgia. (Wikipedia tells me the hills are called Appalachians).

This place was around 150 miles away from where we stayed. We had the maps on our laptop, and a brand new SUV to ride on. On the way we stopped at a lake which was provided the water supply to nearby towns.
The calm over the lake.


Friends pose for a photo.


After a brief stop over, we started off for Helen, only to loose our way not once but twice. But finally we made to the place, in time for lunch. After lunch all decided to go for tubing, while I decided to laze along the banks of the river.
A shot I managed when no-one was there n the river. Trust me, that must have been the only moment when no one was present. All other times it was full of jovial crowd.


Then we proceeded further uphill to the place where the river actually starts. Its nestled amongst a dense pathway, and has been made as a forest reserve kind of place.
Origins of river Chattahoochee.


Further up the hill, after a brief trek, we arrived at the water fall. That was the topmost spot to where we could go. But it afforded a beautiful view of the greenery and the waterfall itself. Here are few pics of the water fall.




On our way back, we stopped at an artificial beach that had been created on the banks of a lake behind the river. Small beach, but was good. Kids, families all splashing around in water, and amongst all that din was this little boy, busy building his own castle.


In all, a day well spent. Its a different story that I could not check out any other place nearby. But then, this is just a start...