A lovely walk at Island Ford

The Shaw Family Annual Expedition

I've always loved walking in the woods, reminding me of my childhood in a little village on the moors in England.

Like all children 30+ years ago, my brother and I were allowed to wander off on our own all day, down through the woods to the river to fish. So at least once a year I force the whole family to wrap up warm and go for a walk down by the Chattahoochee.

It's a beautiful walk along the river, and the fall and winter are perfect times to do it even with young kids (but more on that later!).

Driving to Island Ford is easy (here's a map) and there is plenty of parking which you pay $2 by placing it in an envelope and posting it in a box.

We always walk the blue path (the easiest) which wanders down the hill over the creek and along the banks of the Chattahoochee.

There are maps-on-a-stick at every junction of the paths - here is the map online at the National Park Service web site.

The only thing missing from our walk this year was when I remembered how I used to own a large bowie knife (when I was 10 for goodness sake!) and cut walking sticks and bows and arrows.

Perhaps next year I'll be able to ask for a nice knife for Christmas, but somehow I doubt I'll get that past the wife.

This year I made up a picnic to make it more exciting and we ate it in one of the few rock overhangs that the kids could play all day on.

I felt old teaching them to tidy up after themselves and leave the trail as they found it.

We saw a Heron, plenty of Geese and a few Swans on the river which was nice, shame my Dad wasn't around with his binoculars. A few fishermen wading the far shore too.

Because we have a 3, 6 and 8 year old we don't want to walk far, maybe a couple of miles, so we normally turn around and walk back along the blue path when we get to the end. This year we made a little "detour" though!

We decided to follow the green path and then back down the yellow path - seems like a nice little trek, right? Wrong!

Going up the green was ok, although my 3 year old was on my shoulders by the time we reached the yellow path. But the yellow path was completely blocked by fallen trees! Rather than backtracking we pushed on to the road and walked back along the road, but it was a surprisingly long way.

In the end Tara and Maisy jogged off to get the truck while I sat with the young-uns. It was still good fun, but it'll probably be another year before I persuade them to do it again...