Views from the South Side Roseburn Road

From the last stop, I continued north along the Whycocomagh Road and turned, across from the sign indicating Fergusons Road, onto what Google Maps labels as the South Side Roseburn Road. This gravel road, which I had first explored a few years ago, is driveable, but tends to be a bit muddy; it leads north and northwest back into a valley, where it ends on what appear to be private holdings (trails lead off in several directions from the driveable end of the road).

Photo #1 shows the ridge that closes in the valley on the south; it is the same ridge, unnamed so far as I can determine, down which the Whycocomagh Road descends further south to the bridge over Kewstoke Brook. Strong winds must pour over this ridge, since a number of the hardwoods appear to be have been stripped of their leaves. Although a nice bright red tree appears at the middle left, most give the impression of being past their peak, though, as everywhere, green leaves remain.

Photo #2, taken from further along the South Side Roseburn Road shows the ridge that closes off the north end of the valley. On the far side of this ridge and some distance away, Google Earth shows farmlands southeast of Brook Village accessed from MacGeehans Road. Signs of frost, already evident in photo #1, are more so in this photo, where the bushes and grasses in the foreground have clearly been marked by it.

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Photo #3, taken in the same place as photo #2, shows a splendid evergreen at the side of the road; it’s not only red-leafed hardwoods against a blue sky that are beautiful to the eye!

Photo #4, again taken in the same spot, shows the view to the southeast along the South Side Roseburn Road, with the slopes of Skye Mountain spanning the entire photo. I will defer a discussion of why the the colours on Skye Mountain appear as they do until later in this essay; for now, suffice it to say that it’s partly an effect from the direction of the sun and partly due to the large amount of green in the mix: as later photos will make clear, these hillsides have trees as brightly coloured as those elsewhere in the area. Some bright lemony-lime coloured trees can be seen in the cleft in the centre of the photo, carved by Cove Brook as it makes its way down the mountainside.

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Because the road was pretty wet, I turned around after taking the three previous views and headed back to the Whycocomagh Road; a little more than 250 m (825 ft) before reaching there, the South Side Roseburn Road crosses Kewstoke Brook, where I stopped for more photos; photo #5 looks to the west from the bridge along the brook, which, on the east side of the bridge, will empty into the Indian River about 650 m (0.4 mi) away near the Soapstone–Roseburn Road (locally usually just called the Roseburn Road). The leaves here are mostly green, perhaps protected by the flowing water.