We had an hour to kill in the afternoon and the weather was beautiful so we decided to take a leisurely stroll down the road to the Explora Hotel where we heard that there was an easy boardwalk stroll to see a waterfall next to the hotel. What we did not realize was that the boardwalk was actually a maze of paths set up by the hotel that did not always go directly to the viewpoint of the waterfall. In fact, what we thought would be a twenty minute stroll to see a waterfall turned into an hour and half of wandering over old wooden paths, always hearing the waterfall, but taking a long time to finally get to the spot that we had heard about.
We traveled from Campground Pehoe by turning right out of the parking lot from the restaurant and walking fifteen minutes to the Explora Hotel. The boardwalk was hard to miss when looking from the right side of the road, but this was the back part of the boardwalk, and we made a few mistakes from this point. When wer got to our first four-way intersection on the boardwalk, we thought taking a right would be the logical choice because this led to the lake and we could hear the waterfall coming from this direction. But this was incorrect. This took down to a dock where a large boat was parked, and we could see the rapids that were formed at the top of the waterfall, but could not see the waterfall itself. It was still okay because we had some beautiful views of the mountains in the distance and the whole lake, but we knew there was a better view, and we just needed to find it.
We backtracked and took the left turn this time because if we had gone straight from our original position, this would have taken us to the hotel. This part of the boardwalk seemed promising even though it was taking us down to the hotel’s spa. Still, there was another fork in the boardwalk that went right and took us down by the lake on the other side of the hotel. This followed the shore of the lake and its calm demeanor. We were able to get nice views from here as well, and there were even a couple of ducks sitting on the side of the lake that were there to greet us. Just to warn you, the boardwalk was at its most dangerous here with many of the board rotted and ready to break at any moment, but we took it slowly and were able to get to the other side without any problem.
This is where we were rewarded with the waterfall. We had to climb up a series of rickety wooden stairs to get to it, but once again we took it slowly and we made it up without a problem. Lo and behold, there was a waterfall there. It was a great spot to get some great photos and we were still able to talk over the roar. Even though it turned into a much longer hike than we were anticipating, it still made for a fun outing, and we were able to find some other nice viewpoints along the way.
Going back we found the last of the boardwalks that took us straight to the hotel’s parking lot. It took us a lot longer than we expected but eventually we found the path that we were originally supposed to take to make this a twenty minute stroll instead of the afternoon adventure that we had. Still, I am glad that we did it the way that we did because I think we got more out of the experience. It is a great way to spend some time if you have a lovely afternoon and you really do not have anything better to do.
John Collings 