March 10-11, 2025
City walk
One of my absolute favorite ways to get grounded in a new city is to go on a long walk. I convinced Aaron to spend the day with me exploring Austin on foot! Any good city walk begins with a coffee and pastry, so we picked the closest place to where we were staying: Teal House Coffee and Bakery. I had a few goals with this walk: maximize park and trail time, see downtown and assess the floating situation. Completely arbitrary city walks are totally fun too, but I like to have a few parameters to give me some guidance along the way.
We walked toward the Blunn Creek Greenbelt to the east and followed the pretty trail that connected parks, neighborhoods and public art. What a dream. This took us to the Austin waterfront at Lady Bird Lake. The lake itself was beautiful. I loved finding all the turtles and birds that made this waterway home. I was disgusted, however, at the amount of garbage in the lake. How could the city let such a precious resource get filled with plastic and debris? It was one of the worst I’d seen in a long time. And it’s too bad, considering how many boats we saw on the lake. How much effort would it take to clean it up if just a small percentage of boaters helped clean up? Or if a city department funded clean up efforts? These are the thoughts I had as I strolled along the multi-use paths, taking pictures of turtles.
Other finds on our walk into downtown included a hawk nest, paddleboard rental vending machine, a statue of Stevie Ray Vaughan and plenty of street art. Many people were out walking, running, biking, paddling. A pastor was recording a sermon. Workers were putting up temporary infrastructure for an upcoming event. Kids were playing. People were taking phone meetings. It was a crossroads of humanity.
Once we reached downtown, we popped into a food truck pod for lunch. It was hopping, so we ordered at the least busy vendor and got some excellent falafel. All around us, people displayed their SXSW lanyards. We had come to town at perhaps the busiest time of year.
The afternoon sun wore us down as we attempted to walk to our next destination: the Umlauf Sculpture Garden. Sadly, it was closed for a private event. Instead, we detoured down a steep set of stairs to Barton Creek. There we saw lots of people cooling off in the river. We sat in the shade on the edge of the water and watched people there for a bit. This is where we concocted our plan for the next day.
Knowing we had a ride that could pick us up from anywhere, we decided to cross the creek and explore the Barton Creek Greenbelt Canyon for another mile or so. The Barton Springs Pool was closed for cleaning and renovations, so we had to navigate a bunch of closures, re-routes and construction equipment to get on the trail. But once we found the path, it was quite peaceful and pleasant. I enjoyed the plants, rocks and butterflies we encountered along the way. By the time we reached an exit trailhead, we were both pretty hot and tired and happy to have a driver take us the rest of the way home.
Pack rafting Austin
After the previous day’s walk, I dreamed up a plan to walk back to Barton Springs, put our pack rafts into the creek and float into downtown. It would also be Aaron’s birthday treat!
Both of us enjoyed a lazy morning, sleeping in and eating a late waffle breakfast. It was 11:30 am by the time we began walking. I found the shortest possible route to get to the put-in spot that I scouted previously. There, we blew up our rafts, assembled our paddles and got in the water. Though the water was cool, the sun was already pretty hot, which made for a perfect combination. At this time, there were already a ton of people in the creek. A kayak and paddleboard rental company just across the river made sure of that!
We joined a tangle of watercraft floating down this first part of the creek. Then we drifted past some loud construction project on the river bank, and finally we broke free into more quiet water. At the confluence with the Colorado River (no, not that one, this one), we hooked a right and let the gently flow of the water push us towards downtown.
We lay back and listened to the birds as we admired the Austin city skyline. The wind kept trying to blow us back from whence we came, so we had to paddle a bit more than anticipated. But we had several options for places to get out of the river, so I wasn’t too concerned. We floated through mobs of silly coots and watched the swallows dart and bob overhead. It was fun to see some of the same places we’d walked through the day before, now from our new perspective on the water.
Once we’d had enough of the hot sun and paddling against the wind, we maneuvered into a place where we could exit the water and dry off. We deflated our rafts, collapsed our paddles and packed everything up for the long, hot hike back to the van. We stopped for ice cream on the way to give us enough energy and motivation to finish the route.
I loved our time in Austin, especially these two days that were human-powered. It’s a city I could see myself going back to, but most likely in the fall or winter. Even in March, it was a little too hot for me!