On our way towards Mt. Tzouhalem on Friday we passed a small trail down by the ocean pointing towards the Cowichan Estuary. For some unknown reason we had never bothered to investigate where this trail actually went until late yesterday afternoon. Wow! Have we ever been missing a terrific hike as this long, flat trail follows the Cowichan River down to its estuary where it empties into the sea.
The Cowichan River Estuary
The trail leads starts off from Cowichan Bay Rd. and follows the boundary of the Blackley Farm on one side with the Cowichan River on the other.
Start of the trail
Blackley Farm
Above is the Blackley Farm which goes all the way from Cowichan Bay Rd. down to the mouth of the estuary. It’s a beautiful piece of property and the old, small, modest farmhouse, barns and out buildings don’t look to have changed much in many, many years.
Cowichan River
On the opposite side of the trail from the Blackley Farm the Cowichan River continues its flow down towards the marshes of the estuary and finally Cowichan Bay itself. We had fun stopping here to watch the salmon swimming upstream and, on occasion, jumping right out of the water.
Mt. Tzouhalem Cross – we’ve been there a few times
On the far side of the river, and way above us, we could look up and see the summit of Mt. Tzouhalem. Wow, that’s a long way up and it’s hard to believe that both Paulette and I have stood beside the huge white cross at the summit with that sheer cliff just a few feet away from us. It actually looks scarier from the bottom than I remember it being from the top.
Marshlands of the Estuary
It wasn’t too long before we found ourselves out into the flat marsh lands of the Cowichan Estuary itself. This area is the traditional land of the Cowichan Tribes. The shallow water, marshes and tidal flats provide some of the most biologically productive habitat that is essential to migrating waterfowl, fish and other species. Thankfully, this is all a protected wildlife area today.
The walk along the trail to the spot where the river eventually flows into the Bay is about a mile. The trail is flat gravel and quite wide so it makes for a perfect walk even on what was quite a cool day.
As Paulette and I continued along the trail we kept asking each other “why haven’t we been here before?” “How in the world did we ever miss this spot?” We made a definite note to add this hike to our list of daily favourites.
Rylie loved this brand new hiking trail and was anxious for us to catch up to her so she could venture on ahead of us. Rylie continues to put on ten times as many miles as the rest of us combined as she runs ahead, runs back, runs off into the grass everywhere and anywhere she is able to.
As we approached the end of the trail and the mouth of the Cowichan River, the trail became a little narrower and was covered by a nice canopy of trees.
Here we are – right at the mouth of the Cowichan River where it empties into Cowichan Bay. Like I wrote earlier, this is the very first time in all our years of living here that we’ve ever been to this very spot – unbelievable. We’ll be back though – a lot, I can assure you!
Looking across the bay from our viewpoint we could see the small village of Cowichan Bay. We just live a bit up over the hill behind the village.
The End
By the time we turned around and started to head back along the trail to our car, it was starting to turn to dusk. It was a perfect way to spend a late fall Saturday afternoon. I still have a lot of photos to show including a huge Bald Eagle in full flight, a large Salmon slowly making its way up the river and others but that will have to wait for another post on another day.
Have a great Sunday, and thanks again for visiting!
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