It’s been a stressful week and this weekend I needed to just get away from it all. Total Nature Immersion usually sorts me out, so we went up to the Caledonia Falls for a soothing ‘Forest Bath.’

 
You can get to the Caledonia Falls a number of ways, but the easiest is to park at the Psilo Dendro Trout Farm in Pano Platres and join the nature trail that starts there. It’s well sign-posted.

I’d heard that the Caledonia trail is unsuitable for young children so we’d put off going there. But when I walked part of the trail for the Cyprus Walkdown, it seemed fine. Obviously toddlers need to be carried and there are a few steep, unfenced drops, so you need to be vigilant, but Goobie had no trouble.

The nature trail takes you into the forest and twists and turns as it follows the contours of the mountain. The happiest surprise for me was that it is actually autumn up there! Where I live on the coast, there are mainly coniferous trees that stay green all year. On the coast, autumn appears in the form of clouds in the sky, cold mornings and evenings, shorter days, jeans instead of shorts, duvets instead of sheets.  In the mountains, it brings a blaze of orange and yellow and russet trees that shine out against the dark green pines that surround them. It reminded me of England.

I went back to England last weekend for a family wedding. Before I left I was in shorts and flip-flops. When I got back I needed to wear jeans and trainers. It felt like autumn in Cyprus arrived suddenly while I was in the UK.

The first part of the Caledonia nature trail was along a good track and I was surprised by how busy it was. After about half a kilometre, it turned left on an incline up a narrow valley. The trail became thinner and in parts you had to pick your way over rocks and tree roots. I loved this part of the trail. You followed a stream that flowed down the mountain in a series of mini waterfalls. Goobie could have spent ages looking in rock pools and climbing over fallen tree trunks.

The trail took us over numerous little bridges that criss-crossed the stream. Goobie didn’t tire of playing The Three Billy Goats Gruff over all of them. The whole place smelled of wet leaves and damp earth – the smell of autumn. A smell that I usually associate with England.

After we’d been walking for an hour, we reached a little bench under a shelter and stopped for some lunch. Tree trunks were carved with the names of people who’d stopped to rest there before.

We continued walking another 10 minutes, up some steep steps, over a bridge and round a corner. And voilà! There was the Caledonia Falls.

Like the Myllomeris and Adonis waterfalls, the Caledonia Falls were hardly a torrent. But they were in a pretty, peaceful spot, perfect for children to play in and clamber over the rocks. The falls were surrounded by deciduous trees covered in bright orange leaves. The trail continued upward, past the falls, on a longer walk. I followed it for a short distance to see where it led. When I turned back, the bright orange trees surrounding the falls looked like a beacon among the pine trees. Beautiful.

When Goobie is with us, we walk at a very slow pace. About a kilometre an hour. And that’s as it should be – after all, there’s leaf-throwing, hide-and-seek, rock-jumping, nook-exploring and tree-climbing to be done on the way. I’m not sure of the exact distance from the trout farm to the falls. One sign said 1km, another said 2km. It took us an hour and a half to get there.

After we’d been at the falls for a while, we noticed that the light was going. It was only 3pm, but the clouds were coming in low over the mountain and we could feel spots of rain. We decided it was time to head back. We walked at a faster pace downhill, with no stoppages, and got back to the car in about 40 minutes.

Although the actual falls weren’t the most impressive I’ve seen, the enjoyment was in getting to them. The Caledonia nature trail is a gorgeous walk and Goobie loved it too.

My Forest Bath and lungfuls of mountain air did me good and I felt the knot in my stomach loosen for the first time that week.