Another Wednesday, another hike. I guess that makes it sound more chore-like than I intended. It’s no chore, it’s fun, it’s dark, it’s sometimes muddy, it’s all good. Since my first hike along the Colquitz River a couple months ago, I’ve been thinking that I should check out Cuthbert Holmes Park, which occupies a chunk of land near the end of the river on Portage Inlet. Tonight was the night. I was joined, as usual, by some of my work cohorts as well as my significant other, Michelle and her sister.
We started out at the scenic Tillicum Mall parking lot in front of Kelsey’s Restaurant and headed north along Colquitz River Trail, which heads in the direction of Layritz Park and the Camosun College Interurban campus. As hiking goes, I would say we were hauling ass thanks to some wide, smooth, and hardpacked trail. At various points along this trail there are these interesting concrete platform thingies set up to allow crossing of or viewing of the river. Let me try and paint a verbal picture; imagine lily pad like things, strong enough to support a human and spaced not too far apart thus allowing you to walk across them to the opposite river bank. Not too long after we started, we hung a left on Marigold Road and headed over to Spectrum School. We took the pedestrian bridge over the Island Highway and walked down to Cuthbert Holmes Park. Given its proximity to the Island Highway it was hard to escape the vehicular noise, but it did subside as we headed deeper into the not terribly large park. Having not been in Cuthbert Holmes Park before I did not know what to expect; like most other little parks in Greater Victoria this is a good spot by my standards. Maybe it’s a little bit small, but that’s ok.
It seems like the Wednesday night hikes over the past few months have been trending towards the 6-7km length, this was a good reminder that a nice hour long 5km outing does the job too.
GPS Data: 4.7km – 0h53m – GPS Route
A Wednesday night hike along the Colquitz River and through Cuthbert Holmes Park near Victoria, BC. Click on the map to see more GPS data on the Garmin website.
