i took a wee walk

I’ve been jonesing for a good walk for…well, too long. I consider late 2008 to spring 2010 to be kind of a wash. I was sickly. I was finishing school. Those things are probably related. Etc. But now I live in Victoria, and there are all sorts of places to walk. In fact, this was one of John Muir’s favorite places (he would stop on his travels to Alaska and such), and I can see why—even a hundred years later. It’s good walking country.

Now, I don’t expect my walking tours of Victoria ever to generate the same stories as my Yosemite trips (seriously: the Great Bear Incident of 2007 (and my rebuttal)? or the random musings on sauntering? the whirlwind quick hike to Taft Point? going on Memorial Day? finding Samoset?) but really, that’s pretty tough to do.

I just wanted to go outside. I didn’t have a lot of time, and I’m new to these parts, so I just wanted something less than 5km that would introduce me to a park that had longer trails. So I headed off to Gowlland Tod Provincial Park and set off on the McKenzie Bight trail to get to the water.

First, you walk for 1.5km through the forest. Then you see this from afar. Then you stand and look around and think “yes. pretty. I like it.”

If you’re me, you don’t want to go back the way you came, because—duh—you’ve already been there. So I took a left turn up the 0.5km Cascade Trail. Short, but steep. I always forget that uphill is the “reward” for downhill. But it flattened out and I learned something important: that the 10km loop trail up there is something I’ll do next weekend.