Winter in Beacon Hill Park

The morning started quite wet but by noon the clouds had parted and the sun had to come out. It looked to be a good afternoon to go out and do some walking in the park. Carolyn was going to visit her friend who lives next to the park and so I decided I’d go with her. Her route takes her through the north portion of Beacon Hill Park which was ideal for me to start my walk-through Beacon Hill Park, and so we left together.

On our way to the park, we came to a vehicle accident site where the police had blocked the road. Unfortunately, it looks like a motorbike and a car decided to be in the same spot at the same time. Hopefully the person wasn’t too serious hurt. Passing the site and the local news crew, we entered the park on the north side. The pathway here is surrounded by Arbutus and Gary Oak trees. I greatly enjoyed looking at the bare Gary oak trees, which formed many interesting patterns with their branches silhouetted against the clouds. I took a number of pictures of them, often one ignores the winter months for photos but one can find many interesting shapes in the trees that are hidden by leaves the rest of the year. I was quite impressed with how they looked when all bare and grey.

Continuing on, we came to the ponds and the bird section where the mallards and the Canada Geese were all over the place. One could walk within a couple feet of them. I’m sure you could almost reach out and touch them. They were so friendly but I guess they have gotten very good and determining your path and as long as you were walking on an angle to pass them, they ignored you.  They are probably far too familiar with people for their own good.

We soon passed out of the park and into the residential area, after dropping Carolyn off at her friend’s place, I continued south to the beach. Having reached the cliff edge and the amazing views one finds of the Strait of Juan De Fuca and shoreline. I decided I would walk along the shoreline trail thinking I would go only a short distance and then head back into the park. The walk was very pleasant and the views very attractive. The sun was out, and the path kept going, and I kept walking. I was enjoying the view and watching the many dogs that were enjoying the off-leash area next to the trail. Before too long I had continued along to Clover Point. At the south tip of the point there was a sign stating that that was kilometer zero of the Trans-Canada Trail. It is a trail that makes its way across all the provinces to the Atlantic.  I had been watching for the trail markers as I was planning on doing a Parks on the air activation on it where it crosses through Beacon Hill Park and I can get a two-park credit.  On my next visit to Victoria, I hope to do that activation, so today was a good day to explore the positions of where one could set up. There are a number of good benches that would work quite well. Of course, it’s a dog off-leash area all along there now so you might be sharing your antenna mast with some dogs that may want to water it to give a little more strength to the radio signal.

Done with the point, I made my way back along the trail to the entrance to Beacon Hill. It was very nice enjoying the fresh sea air and watching the waves break against the beach. I could spend a much longer time down there but time moves along and I still had a ways to go to get back to the hotel. It was a great walk so far, I reached the park entrance and stopped to look at an eagle perched on the top of a very tall totem pole. It was apparently a common event as the locals reported seeing the bird there quite often.

I continued into Beacon Hill park, back up to the ponds and birds and along the Gary Oak trail. Soon I reached the north side of the park. The police were gone from the accident site and the last few blocks of the walk home went quickly. My walk ended up taking a few hours, longer than I had planned, but it was a good day to be out and walking and taking a number of pictures as one came by them, including an eagle on top of the totem pole. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get out and do another one. We’ll see how the weather is.