Asheville, NC 2

West to the Smoky Mountains

Leaving the South Carolina coast, we moved inland through the state back into North Carolina, into the far west of the state to the mountains for 3 nights in Asheville.

On our way we stopped at the next National Park on our list, Congaree National Park. This park is very unique and is the largest intact expanse of old growth bottomland hardwood forest remaining in the southeastern United States. Waters from the Congaree and Wateree Rivers sweep through the floodplain, carrying nutrients and sediments that nourish and rejuvenate this ecosystem and support the growth of national and state champion trees. Basically a swampy park !

From the visitor centre there is a 2.5 mile boardwalk loop trail which takes you through the various parts of the ecosytem, some areas quite swampy, others more open and the type of trees vary depending on the amount of water evident. With the richness of the soil, some of the trees are exceptionally tall many over 130 feet high. We even managed to find a local tortoise below us at one point. A very interesting park !

Leaving the park we made our way to I-26 which would take us most of the way to Asheville. We stopped along the way for our coffee and snack and whilst the earlier part of the day had been perfect blue sky, we ran into a couple of heavy downpours along the way – no tornado warnings though !

Although our Chevrolet Malibu only had 7,000 miles on it, I noticed we had been getting an “oil change needed” message every time we started the car. As we still have a lot of miles left on our trip, I thought that as we had 3 days in Asheville it might be a good idea to drop in on the Alamo rental centre in Asheville to see what they suggested. It was located at the regional airport so we stopped there on the way in. They were extremely helpful and basically just swapped our car over – goodbye Chevy Malibu, hello Nissan Altima just like that !

We arrived just after 4pm and decided we would do some washing. So we had a drink and nibbles while we waited for the washing and drying to finish then walked down the street to the TGI Friday restaurant for dinner.

DAY 2 – GATLINBURG (aka DELIVERANCE COUNTRY!)

The area around Asheville is part of the Appalachian Mountain range, basically a mountain barrier between east and west. It extends from as far north as lower provinces in Canada to Alabama in the southern US. Nearby Mount Mitchell is the highest point along the range.

Our next National Park – Great Smoky Mountains National Park – sits nearby on the North Carolina / Tennessee border. It is the most visited park in the US with over 14 million visitors annually (by comparison Congaree NP has about 140,000 visitors annually !)

The mountains also provide some great driving experiences and the Blue Ridge Parkway is an iconic drive through the area. It is a National Parkway and All-American Road in the United States, noted for its scenic beauty. The parkway runs for 469 miles through 29 Virginia and North Carolina counties, linking Shenandoah National Park (which we will visit later in our tour) to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We did a small section before turning off to see Clingmans Dome.

The mountain is slightly lower than Mount Mitchell but is the highest point in Great Smoky Mountain NP. On top is built a viewing tower, accessed via a circular walkway to reach the peak. Whilst out of the peak summer season, we came across some of the 14 mil who visit annually in the Clinman Dome car park ! We managed to snag a parking spot and made our way up the steep half mile path to get to the top but the day was perfect for the view and well worth the effort !

Through the Applachian Mountains runs the Appalchian Trail – a 2,180 mile “public footpath”. It runs through 14 states and whilst today it is managed by the National Park Service it was orginally built by private citizens. We came across a small section near Clingmans Dome and will find other parts further on in our tour.

Here we were basically on the border of Tennessee and our next stop was over the border to visit the “Las Vegas of Tennessee” – Gatlinburg.

Although there are no casinos it is otherwise the ultimate tourist trap. The “cheap” parking was a US$15 flat fee and the “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” in the main street speaks for itself. We did take the (expensive) chairlift up to the Gatlinburg Skyway at the top of Chimney Rock but managed to avoid the cost of the 3 photo spot opportunities along the way. It did give a good view of the surrounding mountains.

Oh, and then there is the moonshine tasting. Not really an option tasting 100% proof moonshine when driving and we decided we wouldn’t bother with the over-priced sample bottles either. So we decided it was a better option to head back to Asheville and the local brewpub.

Hillman Beer was about a 15 minute walk from our hotel in near Biltmore Village. Asheville until recently held the title of “Craft Brew Capital of America” and there are a number of breweries around town. In fact the craft brew scene got so big at one stage that 2 larger US brewers – Sierra Nevada and New Belgium Brewing – decided they needed to estblish an East Coast presence and moved into the area. Food was casual (burger style) and the beer excellent !

Day 3 – BILTMORE

Asheville is also home to the Biltmore Estate – the family home built by George Vanderbilt III and completed in 1895. Or in some ways it could be the other way around – the place is huge !! It is the largest privately owned home in the USA.

The whole estate is 125,000 acres (195 sq miles). In comparison, Centennial Park in Sydney is 0.8 sq miles – so almost the size of 200 Centennial Parks. It is so big that the I-40 actually runs through it – probably because it would have been too costly to go around it !

We first walked around some of the lovely gardens. The conservatory area was huge and contained a vast collection of plants.

We then had a tour of the house booked for 11am. For a building built in the late 1800’s it was very advanced for the period. And due to the fact that the Vanderbilt’s travelled so extensively, some parts of the house were not actually finished to the original plans. The house is also full of tapestries, art works, sketchings etc which were acquired at the time. This includes some original Monets which were essentially “of the era”.

After our house tour we drove to another part of the Estate known as Antler Hill Village. It was once the social centre for families who lived and worked on the estate. It is now a shopping centre, hotel complex (there are actually 3 accomodation options on the whole estate) and winery / cellar. We wandered around here for a while before leaving – driving miles before actually getting off the property !

We did a little outlet shopping on the way back to our hotel and then had our dinner again at the TGI Friday next door – a little bizarre in that the service was a little awkward – when Adrienne asked for another glass of wine, they came back and said they needed to same glass to refill as they had run out of wine glasses ! Probably still better than plastic cups though.

We have had the weird and wonderful but have enjoyed our time in Asheville. Tomorrow we start north and drive further along the Blue Ridge Parkway.