Trail along Long Lake

For a small city, Nanaimo has many beautiful nature parks.  If you crave fresh air, forest trails, lakes, rivers and ocean, with four seasons of the year, this may be the place for you!

My little shitzu and I discovered a new trail the other day right in the middle of the city near our home.  The all-but-hidden entry to it is off of Rutherford Road, behind the new Memory and Complex Care building.  It looks like they may have upgraded the first part of the trail as part of the landscaping back there.   I noticed it when my friend and I were driving by after picking up a pizza from Papa Johns last week, so Bear and I walked down there to check it out.

The first few yards are freshly gravelled, featuring a couple of new wooden bridges over trickling brooks, and benches overlooking mossy bluffs above the lake.  The lake is surrounded by forest, and at the far end you can see a sandy swimming area.  A few kayaks and fishing boats dot the lake.

Continuing along the trail, the gravel peters out into soft needle-covered dirt.  To carry on you need to be agile enough to navigate roots and rocks.  Not TOO difficult–I at 65 years of age and Bear, a ten year old dog with short legs–had no problem!  My husband, though, at 76 and having recently gone through spinal surgery, would be better off sticking to the gravelled area.

Bear and I spent at least an hour meandering along.  We only ran across two people with bicycles near the entrance, but were not too far from the odd fisherman paddling past.  Up above us some branches of the pathway lead to lovely-looking complexes and houses.  I considered going up there and returning home on the road, but it was so refreshing and peaceful enveloped in the quietness of nature, that  I stuck with the trail along the lake.

My senses were being satiated with scents of cedar, pine and fir and reflections of sunlight glinting up from the water, as a gentle breeze wafted the odd droplet of rain onto my warm skin.  But I had lingered long enough and was beginning to look forward to the steaks my husband was barbequing!  Not in too much of a hurry to resist a blackberry patch that we walked through above the mall though!