By Keith and
Heather Nicol
Fall is at its
peak right now and on Sunday, October 22 we took advantage of some changeable
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| 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.
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| 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 31
st 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.
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| Heather at Interpretative Station 5 |
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| Tall leafy maples line the creek |
Truly a beautiful and relaxing walk! There's always something new to look at.
ReplyDeleteNice 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.
ReplyDeleteThere 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.
ReplyDelete