By Keith and Heather Nicol
Fall colours are rapidly disappearing due to the windy conditions of late but on Monday, Nov 3 we took advantage of some changeable 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 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 for the brochures in a plastic
waterproof holder at near the start of the trail.
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Heather on the bridge over Millard Creek
There are numerous big leaf maple in the area and they have showered down lots of leaves along the trail but there are still leaves left on the trees at this point in time. There is a bridge which fords Millard Creek but we saw no signs of salmon swimming upstream on our visit. 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. Thanks to the Millard-Piercy Watershed Stewards and the Rotary Club for putting together the brochure.
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Marker 4 here shows where an old rail line passed through this area
