Sunday 22 October 2017

Great Fall Colours at Millard Creek in Courtenay, B.C.



By Keith and Heather Nicol

      Fall is at its peak right now and on Sunday, October 22 we took advantage of some changeable
There are new benches at the start of the trail
weather to get in a photogenic hike at Millard Creek. Millard Creek is located in the southern part of Courtenay just off of Highway 19A. We parked at Millard Road where there is a parking lot and several new benches have been built which look out to the Comox Estuary. The coordinates of the parking lot are: 49 39.916 N, 124 58.284 W. The trail starts near the parking lot and a real bonus of this trail is that it has a small brochure with 10 interpretative signs which cover various topics related to salmon, the old railway that traversed this area as well as explaining aspects of the vegetation. Look the brochures in a plastic waterproof holder at near the start of the trail.
Keith on the bridge checking for salmon in the stream
     There are numerous big leaf maple in the area and they have showered down lots of leaves along the trail but there are still lots of leaves left on the trees at this point in time. There is a small bridge which fords Millard Creek but we saw no signs of salmon swimming upstream. Coho use this waterway and they might come later perhaps with more fall rains. We saw many people on the trail including a number of families and this trail is also used by cyclists. Toward the end the “wilderness” aspect of the trail ends since a new apartment and several condo developments have been built along the route. We walked as far as 31st Street which would offer another starting point for the walk but it only has 4 parking places so can fill up quickly. The walk to this point is almost 1 km so the return trip can be done in 30 -45 minutes. The fall leaves are well worth checking out since they are some of the best we have seen this year in the Comox Valley.  Thanks to the Millard-Piercy Watershed Stewards and the Rotary Club for putting together the brochure.  
Heather at Interpretative Station 5
 
Tall leafy maples line the creek


3 comments:

  1. Truly a beautiful and relaxing walk! There's always something new to look at.

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  2. Nice write-up for a lovely interpretive walk. The "signpost"/brochure idea is a brilliant way to enrich the experience of this walk for a lot of people.

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  3. There is also a new Signs of Abundance sign located over looking the Estuary at Millard and Sandpiper Dr. More information on that sign and the 8 signs in the Signs of Abundance tour is available at projectwatershed.ca/signtour.

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