Sunday, October 18, 2020

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.  




7 comments:

  1. It's so cool that I've walked where you walked at Parliament! We walked along the locks as well, so I could envision where you were. Your boys are so beautiful, I'm sure they were glad you were trying to get a Walktober in. I know Katie appreciates it every year.

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  2. That looks amazing. Thank you for joining the Sunday Selfies.

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  3. What a wonderful series of walks you have had, and such great scenery and history to admire along the way, of every kind.
    Purrs
    ERin

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  4. Your leaves are beautiful! What a SuperFun day for you and your mom, boys!

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  5. What wonderful walks, even if they didn't turn out as planned. The fall colors are beautiful. So are the boys. :) (I couldn't figure out how to link to my blog since Blogger insisted on using a link to a blog that doesn't exist...yet... WordPress sometimes makes me want to move to Blogger.)

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  6. What beautiful fall days for walking! Walktober is a fun way to share different locales and your boys are handsome walking partners!

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  7. Sometimes, it is best not to plan at all. You did, however, have three lovely walks to share!

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