For the second trip, Dale and I did quite a bit of research to find another quality spot to do some primitive camping.  Everybody seemed to have great things to say about Colorado Bend and it was only about 1.5 hours from Austin, so we decided to do another one night trip. 

We took off early Friday and got to the park shortly after noon.  We planned on camping at the primitive area (along the Colorado River), but we wanted to take the long route which would allow us to see the Spice Wood Springs Trail (SWST), which was supposed to be beautiful.  We parked and made our way about half a mile to the Spice Wood Spring trail head.  Immediately, we came across a crystal clear pool that was amazing.  As we continued up the trail, we encountered one pool after another, all being fed by small waterfalls.  The heart of the trail was about one mile with probably 30 waterfalls and pools.  It really was stunning.

Once we were past the good stuff, we continued on towards the primitive area.  It was about three more miles to get there and was nice, but not nearly as scenic as the SWST.  Once we finally reached the primitive camping area, we looked across the river and there were homes just on the other side and kids and parents outside playing.  Not exactly the solitude we were hoping for.  Not willing to settle, we decided to once again do what we weren't suppose to do and find somewhere else to camp.  We headed back towards the SWST with the idea of finding a spot near the water.  At this point, we already hiked five miles and were a little tired but we couldn't let that stop us. 

By the time we got back to the SWST, it was starting to get dark so we knew we had to find somewhere fast.  The system we used was: hike along the trail, look off to the sides to find somewhere that might be secluded (we didn't want to be seen by the park rangers) and go investigate.  We did this several times but only found rocky, inclined areas that weren't conducive to sleeping.  It was now dusk and we were a little desperate.  We contemplated setting up camp on the trail itself when we spotted a clearing through some dense wooding.  We hiked in and found the perfect spot for camp.  We quickly threw together the tent and retired for the evening.

The next morning, we were hurting a little from the eight miles we hiked the previous day.  The only thing we really had in mind was to see Gorman Falls, which were also supposed to be awesome.  We packed up, headed back to the car and then made our way to where the falls were.  It was a short but steep hike down to the falls area.  Once we got there, we were blown away by the beauty and size of the falls.  We kept asking ourselves, are we really in Texas?!?  I just can't imagine how something that amazing was so close to Austin and I never saw it before then.   It's something that I definitely recommend everyone going to check out..