Maybe the only good thing about 2020 has been getting to explore more outdoor activities like hiking. Hiking is good exercise, good for taking fun social media photos, and a great way to experience the beauty of North Carolina!
We have taken a walk or a run pretty much every day since the March “safer at home order” for coronavirus. We have been lucky that we can work from home, but that made getting out of the house in the fresh air even more important! Our daily walks have showed us beautiful areas of Charlotte that we wouldn’t have explored before, but to be honest we have seen the Queen City a little too much lately so getting a change of scenery was great!
We decided to take a drive from Charlotte to Hanging Rock State Park and Divine Llama Winery. Both locations are north of Winston Salem and about a 1.5 hour drive from Charlotte.
True to our motto, we decided “Let’s Just Look” at what this North Carolina State Park is about!
We decided to start with the main hiking trail, which is known as the Hanging Rock trail. The hike starts off pretty easily with paved paths, leading to gravel paths. However, the trail gets steeper and rockier as you go! While the trail is only 1.3 miles, you do go up a mountain pretty quickly, with large stairs and boulders to climb over as you go up. While we saw some brave souls attempting it in flip-flops, we’d strongly recommend wearing good walking or hiking shoes! And though there are plenty of benches and fresh mountain air, be prepared to get a sweat on as you go up the mountain. (While not required, out of an abundance of caution, I had my mask on when we passed groups. The path is wide, but it’s not always 6 feet wide!).
However, the view from the top is worth the effort! You will be treated to a beautiful panoramic vista overlooking Hanging Rock State Park. After you take in the astounding view, then the real fun can begin: the photoshoot! Be careful when walking on the rocks – there are no guard rails and it is very rocky at the top. However, there are infinite beautiful photo options – especially if you can have a friend (or fellow hiker) take a photo of you from one rock over.
The most fun and popular photo opportunity is the “hanging rock cliff” photo. There is a large pointy boulder near the top, down a path to the right of the main trail. There are a lot of rocks and a good sized ditch to jump over, so it’s not exactly “accessible” but once you get over there, you can take this funny photo. Clearly, we were not hanging from a cliff, but with some creative photography, and a well-timed jump, you can make this memorable photo yourself!
After taking approximately 1,000,000 pictures we made our way back down the mountain. Going down is actually a little harder than going up, in the sense that you really have to focus on your footing on the rocky parts. Take your time and be careful!
Once we reached the trailhead, we decided to check out the 2 beautiful waterfalls in the State Park – the Hidden Falls and Window Falls. The round trip is about 1.5 miles long but are comprised almost solely of steep stairs! Though it’s only a third of a mile to the falls, that actually feels a lot longer because you’re pretty much always going up stairs! However, it’s worth it to see the beautiful natural waterfalls.
On the drive up to the Hanging Rock State Park we noticed signs for camping, kayaking and beaches. The park itself had a very nice visitor’s center with clean bathrooms, and the park also had a lot of amenities, such as dozens of grills and picnic tables for cooking out, and large shelters you could rent for bigger parties. It appears that the park has so much more to offer and we will definitely be back to explore more!
Time to Drink Wine with Llamas!
Once we were done with our hike we changed and made our way to the Divine Llama Winery. The winery was about 40 minutes away and was definitely worth the trip! We got to the winery and were immediately impressed with the social distancing safety procedures. Though normally folks would gather on their beautiful patio, they had created private outdoor tents with patio tables and chairs spaced well beyond 6 feet from each other. We actually spoke with the owners (without realizing it at first) and you could tell that they both really cared about keeping people (and llamas) safe!
We got two different wine flights and got a taste of each white wine. Zach tried one of the red wines and enjoyed it very much. While we were drinking our wine flights we also got some Lobster Rolls from the Lobster Dogs food truck. Make sure you check out the wineries Instagram and webpage for weekly food truck updates.
Once we finished our wine and food we agreed on a bottle of wine. We picked the “Valvin Muscat” . The wine is sweet and fruity and very easy to drink.
At this point we started exploring the vineyard including all their Llamas. We walked around and took some amazing pictures between the grape vines.
We walked a little further and started seeing the Llamas just running around in their huge fenced in areas. Some llamas decided to hang out in the barn where we could visit them up close and made it possible to make some amazing memories. We posed with the llamas and some seemed to be a little judgy that we walked around with a bottle of wine. Overall they were the sweetest strangest looking animals and we kinda want one on our backyard.
We kept going on the path and passed by some 3 day old babies that were up and running around. We expressed our “oohs and awws” and took 100 more pictures. We ended up talking to the owner and learned about the history of the winery. Just in case you were wondering, the llamas were first! A highlight of the day was when the owner opened up the gates of the pregnant llama mamas and they were able to just run and be free. You could feel the love in the air for these animals and the way the owner spoke about them.
We can’t wait to be back to meet more llamas, to drink more wine and explore more trails! If you are looking for a nice day trip and want to feel like you are on a mini vacation – then this North Carolina road trip is a must do!
