first bike outing

[piranha]

so today we took the new bikes out for our first ride away from home. and it was great! we were going to hemer park originally, but when i got to cedar road, i remembered that when playing with google earth i had looked at the nanaimo river estuary, and that there was apparently a road from cedar leading right into it. for some reason i had always thought raines road just went into a native reservation. which it does, but it also leads to a small parking place that gives access to the estuary and its marshes, complete with a lookout. so on impulse i suggested we drive down that road and see what it looks like.

that was a good idea. the estuary is beautiful back in there, and while we're too late for spring migration, this is obviously a place to come to in fall as well. and we found wild asparagus! there wasn't much opportunity to ride the bikes inside the gated area, but this'll be great to come back to with rubber boots and binoculars. saw a bunch of killdeer. i think some of the area was probably once dyked for pasture; we saw what looks like the remains of dykes, though not really high enough. maybe they have been destroyed to allow the water to flow more naturally again.

when we got back home i went back into google earth and plotted the path we took. :)

note to the *poing* -- the peninsula to the right is duke point where we walked all the way up to the tip.

estuary ride 4.7 km round trip, along most of raines road, and through the gate into the estuary itself. (clicking brings up 300k large version of image.)

raines road was a perfect ride -- almost entirely level, and just enough distance to get all the unused muscles to start working. i think we're gonna also try for the nanaimo side of the estuary; we went there once last year starting at the campground and got a little lost trying to bushwhack our way out to cedar road, but i can trace a map of the path network off google earth.

note to self; interesting land use information: integrated land management bureau special initiative nanaimo estuary.

(hrm. lj's auto-formatting seems to be broken.)

Comments

[surelars.livejournal.com]

Looks really nice. I am a little disappointed with myself that I haven't managed any cycling trips this year. I need to get out there. I do my 25 km each way to the office (on days I'm not traveling, working at home, or whatnot), and about half of that is through the woods - and the woods are just lovely this time of year. The raw force of natures growth is an amazing thing to see.

But I need to do a longer trip and go somewhere I don't usually go.

[mayaknife.livejournal.com]

The raw force of natures growth is an amazing thing to see.

Even as a kid I took great delight in seeing grass and weeds pushing their way up through cracks in streets and sidewalks. It helped to reassure me that mother nature was one tough S.O.B. Once we stop putting the boots to her, she'll come back strong.