Where will we wander Wednesday? Wow, that’s a whole sentence with words starting with the letter W. If this were Sesame Street there would be a song to go along with this wonder of a sentence. Every Monday or Tuesday, this w-loaded question bounces around in my head while I try to figure out where I’ll hike on Wednesday night. Sometimes the answer comes slowly and other times it comes quickly. While there are many options, the choice is not usually random – maybe I should try that sometime. Don’t let me give you the impression that I agonize over the decision, I don’t; fundamentally it’s just about getting out. I guess my one priority is that I don’t repeat something I did the week previous.

Tonight the hike was something I’ve done a few times in the daylight, but never at night. Starting at the Gonzales Bay beach with the sound of wind and waves, we headed east through beachfront ritzville (no not a reference to the cracker). After some marveling at an impressive number of ceiling lights in one ritzville abode we popped up to Crescent Road and headed towards the Chinese cemetery on Penzance Road. Not much too see in the cemetery, so we moved along, uphill, through Trafalgar Park back to the road on King George Terrace. We made the decision to head over to Andersson Hill Park and did a nice little out-and-back trail with the highlight being views of McNeill Bay. The last half of the hike consisted of taking the road back to the bottom of King George Terrace where the stairmaster workout began leading us up to Walbran Park and eventually Gonzales Park. After a brief, and dandy-fine, gander at the city lights from the old observatory in Gonzales Park it was back down to the beach to finish things off.

Once again, a great way to spend part of an evening.

GPS Data: 6.8km – 1h38m – GPS Route

A Wednesday night hike at Gonzales Bay and McNeill Bay near Victoria, BC. The route included Trafalgar, Andersson Hill, Walbran, and Gonzales parks. Click on the map to see detailed GPS information on the Garmin website.