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.

Before tonight I had not previously done any hiking in the Colquitz River area. It’s not as much of an escape from civilization as some other places since traffic is almost always audible, but it was good. We made it almost to Carey Road before we decided to head back to keep our distance around 7km. I’ll have to head back here in the daylight sometime to check it out. Maybe I could do an extended version that includes some of the trails near the Camosun College Interurban campus; this would probably end up being about 15km.

As usual, see below for summary information and a map from our hike.

GPS Data: 7km / 1h27m / GPS Route

A map of our hike route along Colquitz River / Creek near Victoria, BC. Click the map image to see more GPS information on the Garmin website.