The Lochside Regional trail

On each visit I make to Victoria I try to spend some time with my cousin who lives in Oak Bay. Jim usually finds some outdoor adventure that we can do together if the weather works. This trip he suggested a walk along the trails of Mount Doug, I mentioned the Lochside trestle bridges as being something new. He thought my idea was worth considering. When he arrived to pick me up on Thursday, he said that he had selected a good starting point for our walk along the trail and so we headed out to that location.

The Lochside trail follows an old train route that was in use a hundred years back. It is quite level and proceeds from Victoria to Swartz bay, a distance of 29km. We would not be walking the whole route of course, only a segment in the southern section. We made our way through the city streets and finally arrived at an access point where there is some parking. It was at the 2.5km point along the trail. At this location there are some industrial businesses, a power substation and trailer washing facility that neighbour the trail. 

We found a parking spot alongside the roadway and then started out north along the trail. It soon leaves the roadway and becomes a paved walkway. It was at this point that Jim said he had never walked the trail before, only cycled it with his e-bike! That didn’t seem to comfort me as he was talking about walking to a small farm market that meets up with the trail. It was the Mattick Farm! I knew that farm because Carolyn and I had often spent time there waiting for the ferry. I remember it as being quite a distance! I said that it was a long way but agreed to see how the walk went.

Not far along the walk we came across a trestle bridge that crosses a small lake, Blenkinsop Lake. The bridge offered some nice views along the length of the lake. I was surprised by the huge size of the lily pads that crowded the shore of the lake. They reached well out of the water and were much larger than the pads I was familiar with. We continued along the route, soon it became a road again with a few cars. There were a number of people out walking the trail with their dogs which came in all sizes. The largest number of users were cyclists. Some were moving at a fast clip which seemed a bit unsafe considering the narrowness of the trail and the number of pedestrians.

We slowly made our way north noting the many sights - a booth selling local honey and, farmland with animals, open spaces, elementary schools, many homes and some with large acreage yards. Despite being in a suburban setting the wide spaces seemed surprising but well appreciated. Though our speed was not great our conversation filled any gaps that we encountered. I did find a number of sights to photograph so hopefully I have something worthwhile. By the time I was starting to get tired we were only a few blocks from the farm! So, we continued on and soon arrived at the café area. I was actually more familiar with Mattick Farm Village than Jim and I pointed out the choices.

We both ordered a coffee and sweet bread to eat while we rested before the return walk. Done with coffee and food we started the return. The outgoing route was over 6km and such is what we had to look forward to. The return brought some new views to see which we missed on the outward direction, so it was still an interesting walk as we made our way back to the car. When we finally arrived at the car, I was quite tired and my feet were complaining quite seriously. I don’t think I could have handled much more. I knew that I would be paying for the adventure tomorrow. The drive back to the hotel took a bit longer than the way out as we now had some of the rush-hour traffic to deal with. We eventually got back to the hotel, and I made my way to the room feeling quite worn out but also glad to have tried a new adventure. I will be back in July so we will need to plan for something new on that visit. Hopefully a bit less taxing.