Walktober

This year for Walktober I wanted to find a nice place for a walk that I had never been to before; it couldn't be too far away and had to allow dogs. I also didn't want the trail to be too long and I was looking for some place that had some views. Well, I found the W.E. Burton Conservation area. It's about an hours drive from my place and is on the banks of the Castor River. It's a narrow park bordered by the river on one side and Church street on the other. You're never out of hearing distance of traffic noise but with the sound of rushing water the traffic kind of fades into the background. There's only about three kilometers of trail in the conservation area, part of it is a linear trail starting at one end with a loop near the parking area at the other end. 

I would have rather gone during the week but you take the nice days when you get them so we went out on Saturday. This little conservation area is popular with families and dog walkers as the main trails are wide and level. Luckily, the woods are not really thick so I could get off the trail and onto a path through the woods whenever we saw other dogs. 

Conservation area trails

There are plenty of views of the river but not many places where you can actually access the shoreline. Near the dam, the shoreline is fenced off, good thing as Teddy tried to outbark the sound of the rushing water.

Falls at the Dam

Past the dam was a marsh area, I had hoped the trail would afford better views of the marsh but it actually just headed alongside the road that borders the park, coming out at the other end of the conservation area. We backtracked here, heading back to the parking lot and then did the other half of the loop that we hadn't done.

Marsh View

Church Street

On other half of the loop, we saw a small stream and had better access to river views.  I think it would be nice to have a riverside home as long as there's not too much flooding.

Little stream

Trail with Church Street ahead

River view

Castor River

We did find one place where I could get the dogs to the shoreline so of course there had to be a photo op.

This was a nice little park, if I lived closer I'm sure I would go there quite often. Hopefully we'll have some more nice days before winter really hits; I find it so hard to get out and about when we have a ton of snow and it's really cold outside. 

Mini Walktober Walks

 Well, it's Walktober, one thing we can do in a pandemic is go for a nice walk. I planned three walks, none of which turned out as planned but it was still nice to get out.

Facebook reminded me of past walks by the Ottawa river ahead of our Thanksgiving weekend so I decided to do that again. Since adding Liam to the pack, I can no longer take all three dogs to the federal government owned lands administered by the National Capital Commission. NCC regulations only allow each person to walk a maximum of two dogs so I decided to go to a boat launch that has a trail by the river.  There's a an old boat on the shoreline, I'm sure it's located on private property. I thought it would be a good place for some pictures; but since this really isn't a public trail, I found it had been overgrown and I decided I wasn't going to try and wrangle three dogs through the brush to get there so we turned back. Even had we made it to the boat, we would have had to turn around as the trail just follows the river's edge.

On the Ottawa river.

The boys leading the way.

The trail

Looking down to the boat launch.

Our next walk was on Thanksgiving Monday, we went to do the Wilsondale trails. They are trails maintained by the city of Ottawa and are in behind the Cumberland Heritage Village Museum. We started out to do some of those trails but even though it was a bright sunny day, the trail was wet and muddy.  I don't think we had even gone halfway and it was just too muddy so again I headed back.  We did walk the museum property instead. The museum doesn't permit dogs when it's open but once it's closed they don't seem to mind. I've walked the dogs there a number of times even in the winter as the roads are kept plowed. 

On the Wilsondale trail

Heritage Village Museum

Barn in the Heritage Village

Tractor and fall colours

Another barn

Old gas station

My last Walktober walk was just yesterday. I had thought to go downtown Ottawa to take a picture of the statue of the Famous Five statue as today is Persons Day in Canada. I took just Keltic and Liam with me. We walked all around the Parliament buildings, down to the canal, over to the War Memorial and down the Sparks street mall but we didn't see the statues. Turns out because the restoration work has started on the Parliament buildings that many of the statues have been moved. The restoration work will take the next ten years.  The Famous Five statue has been moved to the front of the building being used as the temporary Senate, it will be a government conference centre once all the renovations are done. 

Statue to the War of 1812

View of the Ottawa River and Gatineau from behind Parliament

Eternal Flame and the Peace Tower

Keltic and Liam on the Rideau Canal

Rideau Canal Locks

Keltic at the War Memorial

Liam - downtown Ottawa

So while none of walks turned out as planned, they got us out of the house to enjoy some beautiful fall days.  Hopefully, there will be more nice days ahead as I have leaves to rake.  

Walktober - Lime Kiln Trail

My niece does a birthday photo shoot for her boys every year and this year was no different.  She posted pictures from this year's photo shoot of her oldest boy, my oldest great nephew and it inspired me to go hike that trail.

The photo shoot was at a trail across town but not that hard to get to as it is off one of the major roads that crosses the National Capital Commission Greenbelt.  We are lucky in Ottawa that the NCC maintains such green spaces with hundreds of kilometers of trails.

The lime kiln ruins are just 700 meters from the parking lot but the whole trail which goes around a bog is four kilometers (2.5 miles).  I didn't quite do the four kilometers as I took a short cut on a path through the woods rather than staying on the trail and going all the way around the woods.

Looking down into the kiln

Kiln

It was another enjoyable walk. We ran into a school group on a field trip and Beckett and Keltic got plenty of attention.

My photo subjects weren't as cooperative as my great nephew but I did get a few good shots. The first shot is of Beckett and Keltic at the Lime Kiln ruins, the second is of the walls of the small quarry behind them and the third is them on walls of what used to be the powder magazine for the quarry.

The trail itself is wide, most of it looks like it was once a road through the area so it makes for an easy walk.

View from the parking lot

Boardwalk

Marsh

Burnt Out Bog

Still Charred

 There was a fire in the area in 2012 and, while you can still see the impact of the fire, the area is now regenerating. This is a trail, since now I know about it, will likely do again. Dogs are allowed on the trails from 1 Apr to 30 Nov, during the winter they put in cross country ski trails here and then the dogs are not allowed.

I hope you enjoyed our second walktober walk, perhaps there will be another one.  I'm trying to do 10,000 steps a day. I have been pretty successful but not so yesterday since it was Canadian Thanksgiving and I only got in one walk in the morning before spending the afternoon and evening enjoying a wonderful turkey dinner with family and friends.

If you want to join in walktober go to Officially Walktober.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Walktober - Gatineau Park

It was a beautiful fall day out so I decided we should go and see Fall Rhapsody in the Gatineau Park. On the weekends if the weather is nice, it's almost impossible to go as the parking lots are just packed. They do have a shuttle that runs to many of the trail heads but since dogs are not allowed on the shuttle that's not an option for me and the boys.

Today we went up the the Champlain Lookout (Champlain Belvedere, in French). It was a bit disappointing as the lookout was blocked off with signs saying it was dangerous and was under repair.  But we did hike the Champlain Loop trail and got some nice pictures of the Ottawa Valley. 

Champlain Lookout

Ottawa Valley

Ottawa River

The trails was pretty easy but they do make the steps a little big for us short people and little dogs.

Beckett looking down a ravine

Keltic, ready to go.

Trail stairs

There were relatively few people today but still more than I expected.  After we did the Champlain Loop, we drove back down the parkway to the King Mountain trail but found out that dogs are not permitted on that trail so we headed further down to the Lauriault Trail that I knew was dog friendly.  This trail is a longer than the first one we did and is not a loop so you have to walk back the way you came if you want to go back to the parking lot and your car. You can make it a loop by doing the Waterfall trail, crossing the parkway, then working your way back to the Lauriault trail parking lot.

We turned around at the falls. They weren't much to see at this time of the year, there hasn't been enough rain so they were just a trickle. 

I'm not a very religious person but I do believe that there is a creator for this universe. A. All I could think of today was that I was walking through a temple of light and air, how could there not be something that had a hand in it's design.   The camera does not do it's beauty justice, especially when your camera is just your smart phone.


One last photo op at the lookout on the Lauriault trail and then we headed back to the parking lot and well deserved drink of water before heading home.

If you want to read some other Walktober blog posts, head on over to Change is Hard and read Walktober - Katie's Way or Breezes at Dawn for the Officially Walktober post. We may just get out for another Walktober adventure.