Preview: On rainy afternoons, mist enshrouds the fern-blanketed hills at Wahrani Nature Park, evoking the Smoky Mountains rather than Tidewater Virginia. Though modest by Appalachian standards, the distinct climbs along this route lead hikers to a sweeping overlook and a pair of colonial graves. In 2001 New Kent County assumed jurisdiction over the 138-acre parcel encompassing this longstanding nature trail, making it the first holding of the county’s fledgling parks department. Until recently, this route was alternately referred to as the Chesapeake Nature Trail, because Chesapeake Corporation owned the land, or the Warreneye Nature Trail, in honor of the eighteenth-century Warreneye Church that once stood here. In 2003 New Kent renamed the area Wahrani Nature Park to reflect the word’s Native American origins. That same spelling is now applied to a swamp south of the park.

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