17-Feb-2001 -- The East Carolina University Geography club was in
charge of finding this confluence. We decided to start
our trip around 9 a.m. shortly after a rainstorm had
passed. After about an hour drive, we found the dirt
road that leads to the vicinity of the confluence.
There was a gate at the entrance of the path so we
could only drive about 30 yards off the road. From
there we hiked down the extremely muddy path into the
woods and straight into a swamp! We decided that the
location we wanted was on the other side of this
marshy area. Only our faculty advisor, Dr. Pease, had
enough sense to bring rubber boots, the rest of us
just had wet feet the whole day. Once we got to the
other side we realized that the confluence was in the
other direction, so once again we trampled through the swampy ground.
We finally made our way through an abundance of briars
until we found the relative location of the
confluence. Yet again, we were faced with the
pleasurable experience of walking through swamp water.
We made our way across and onto a bit of land but a
waist deep creek, which was the source of all the
swamp backwater, stopped up from crossing. So we did
what any relentless group of geographers would do; we
built our own bridge out of limbs we found on the
ground. Needless to say it wasn't perfect but it did
its job. We found our confluence at the very edge of
the creek, took the pictures, removed our bridge to
prevent further damming of the area, and headed on ourway back to our cars.
We didn't leave the same way we went in, and no one
thought to take a GPS reading or compass bearing where
we parked. We walked for a while, sometimes in circles
it seemed, through dense brier patches and undergrowth
until we reached our original path. It may have taken
us a little longer to get back than it did to find the
site, but hey, we are the geography club, we can't get
lost, right?!