There’s nothing quite like going for a walk through the woods. The smell of tree bark and the sounds of birds and bugs does wonders for your mental health. Strolling through one also never fails to entice the imagination.
Forests have always been settings for stories of fairies and critters of all sorts. But what if you could make those stories a bit more real?
There’s something magical in New Jersey’s Milburn South Mountain Reservation, and not just the view.
Take a short stroll through a particular trail here, and you’ll pick up on how unique it is from other trails you’ve been on. Does it feel a bit more magical?
There’s little woodland fairies out and about all across this trail.
Some are cleaning their homes, some are chilling on branches, and the others just want to keep you company.
Where’d they all come from? Well, this trail is called the Rahway Trail.
It’s a special trail for a project that started 10 years ago, by a mother for her autistic son.
Terese was a mother to a boy with autism, and she wanted to give him a reason to go outside and be one with the outdoors for a while. Autism affects people differently, and in this case, it seems like it made Terese’s son a bit timid and introverted.
So Terese filled the trail with things to capture her son’s attention. Let him see how wonderful the world is once he gets out of his comfort zone.
The mother and son have since moved out of the area, but the little trail has stayed.
And in their absence, other locals have taken upkeep and contribution to the trail into their hands.
And dare I say, it looks superb thanks to them. I don’t know how large it was originally, but the trail’s little fairy spots extend for quite a bit now.
The current caretakers of the fairy trail are Beth Kelly and Julie Gould, one a mother of two, and the other a kindergarten teacher.
Every single fairy house here is made from things you can find in the woods. So think of old timber, logs, rocks, vines, and so on. Thanks to that, they blend right in and look like they were actually constructed by the forest’s own tiny residents.
Immersion is really what makes or breaks it, and nothing sells the fairy idea more than some authentically-constructed fairy homes.
There’s almost 100 fairy homes scattered and tucked away around the trail now.
Visitors spend a good time admiring and looking for all of them, so Beth and Julie’s work paid off.
Some young ones on the trail are pretty sure they’ve seen the fairies too. That’s exactly the kind of memory the managers of the trail want to give kids.
As for the adults, a little suspension of your disbelief can’t hurt once in a while, right?
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