25: Cherry Hill Beach on Saturday with a friend from Ottawa who was visiting. The tides were a little high, so we ended up climbing over rocks to get to the end of the beach.
26: Cherry Hill Beach on Sunday with my regular walking friend. This time the tides were a little more favourable, which meant we could walk the full length of the beach without having to walk on the rocks. Interestly, my tracker measured a full 1/2 km less on this walk. With the lower water we had a shorter distance to walk!
Cherry Hill Beach – Saturday and Sunday – what a difference tides make!
27: The Cemetery. I’d hear there were a lot of nice paths for walking around the cemetery in Bridgewater. When we drove by the other day, after our Cherry Hill walk, we noticed how amazing the rhododendrons looked. That got us thinking that we should try a walk around the cemetery. Since the weather was threatening – we managed to get out for an hour, explore the cemetery, and get home before the sky released a wall of rain. We even saw some turtles in the pond.
There is hiking trail between Green Bay and Broad Cove. On the map it is called Bear Trap Road.
Because it was low tide, we walked for 2 km almost all on the beach. On the way bay we followed the path – which involved walking in long grass (a favourite place for ticks). We did find a several of the bigger ticks on us when we got to the van, a couple of which were embedded. Fortunately, we have a tick removal kit in the van and we were able to remove the embedded ones. The others just brush off. We also brushed Cali to try to remove any that she may have picked up.
The hike itself is quite beautiful but it was a very difficult beach to walk on – the sand and rocks were mostly soft, so there was a lot of extra effort involved in walking.
20: A walk at Beach Meadows Beach on Tuesday May 31.
21: Mowing the lawn. I’m not sure if this is a cheat or not, but I did put on my tracker while I was pushing the lawn more back and forth and clocked more than 3km while mowing! Friday June 3
22: Rissers Beach. We are camping so this was a lovely after dinner walk in the fog at low tide. I was worried that it would be too busy, but it being a school night while the kids are still in school meant that the part is not too busy. We managed a walk on the beach with only running into one other group of people – it might have been because it was foggy!
23: Rissers Beach and Atlantic Breezes. We found a new trail that started out from the group campsite at Rissers. It was well established so we followed it thinking that it might bring out back to the campsite. It didn’t. After climbing some stairs we discovered the trail was part of a 1.9km system of well maintained trails that are part of the development – Atlantic Breezes.
At the end of the hike we decided to check out the canteen at the park. It turned out to be a food truck with fresh fish and chips. Initially they couldn’t do gluten free, but then she realized she could pan fry me a piece of fish. I couldn’t eat the fries as the oil was cross contaminated, but they also had some plain lays potato chips – so I fish and chips, just a different kind of chips! The fish was very fresh and amazing.
We snuck in an additional walk at low tide during sunset. It was stunning. The pictures don’t really capture the waves and how they seem to glow in the fading light.
For today’s walk I explored a different part of town. After walking up to the top of the Town Pond trail, I ventured into town and walk by a little library. I took that opportunity to choose a book that I will hopefully read when we go camping next week.
It being a Sunday and a beautiful and warm day (approximately 25 deg C), we decided to check out Cherry Hill Beach again. This time, the tides were right, which meant that we had over 1.5 km of beach to walk along. The place was busier than I’ve ever seen it – and yet there was still enough space between people and dogs that I could let Cali chase the ball the entire walk.
With the warm weather we decided to walk barefoot on the beach. I can confirm that the water is still VERY cold!
A ‘busy’ day at Cherry Hill Beach
Sue and Cali dipping their toes in the vary cold ocean
This week began with some grand plans. The goal was to hike in three different places, but also to increase the distance I’ve been hiking.
15 – Tuesday saw the first hike – the Pink route at Indian Path Common. This 4.6 km hike means that I’ve now done all the paths at Indian Path Common. Cali seems happy on this trail, as we didn’t see another person until we arrived back at the parking lot. This meant that she could follow me without the need of a leash.
16 – On Wednesday we headed out to Blue Rocks Common. The landscape here is so different – no tall trees except the occasional apple tree and evergreen. Mostly it is rock and shrubs. It is a great place to find partridge berries and cranberries in the fall.
It also seems to be the best place for me to take portraits of Cali, as she seems to enjoy posing while sitting or standing on the rocky surfaces.
There are a few places where you can catch the spectacular view.
At one point Cali was fixated on an area and rolling in it – which means she found something that smells like animal. With a little inspection, it appears what she found was a bone from a deer leg. It was pretty cleaned out, so didn’t smell. She was so proud of herself. I picked it up and new that I couldn’t throw it away, as she would just run after it. So, I brought it with me. I figured she could enjoy chewing it (note, after a couple of days, I can confirm that it didn’t make her sick).
After our wondering walk, we headed home – unfortunately that didn’t go too well. First we missed a turn, and took that opportunity to explore more of Lunenburg. We ended up in the residential area above the waterfront. We were surprised to see a lot of different churches – something like 6 or 7 of them!
We found our way back to one of the ‘highways’ and headed home. Unfortunately, we made contact with another vehicle at a four way stop on the way home. We are all OK, but the car wasn’t driveable. I tried to move the car out of the middle of the intersection, but the car just said that something was wrong and it wouldn’t shift into drive. Someone asked about putting it into neutral and pushing it, but an electric car doesn’t have a neutral. So, that car sat in the middle of the intersection until the tow company came to pick it up.
The people were all super friendly – even the guy whose car I hit. I am amazed at just how politely and friendly everyone was given the situation. If your going to be in an accident, this is a good place to do it!
The lack of car and some post accident muscle soreness meant that our plans for hiking Gaff Point on Thursday had to be cancelled. Friday morning we picked up a rental car, so hiking can happen again next week. The weekend is rather rainy, so a good time to get caught up on my sitting at the computer work!
A note on Blue Rocks – it is a pretty hike but full of ticks. Since Cali did a lot of rolling around, she picked up more than we could count. Fortunately the medication she takes kills the ticks when they bite her. I also found a couple on my legs, that fortunately had not attached. They were the bigger dog ticks, so not that ones that carry lyme. It is a reminder that it is that time of year! They are not nearly as bad as last year, but this is one location where they were plentiful.
17 – Today’s walk was in town. It has been a rainy day – but warm and muggy – 20 degree C and drizzle. When the rain stopped and the sun looked like it might sneak out, I took a walk around the pond. My body was feeling better than it has in a long time, so I added onto that walk to include a walk through the park on the LaHave River near our place.
I’m getting behind on blogging my walks. The first three here were done with my Aunt who was here to visit with us. It was lovely getting chance to walk with her again – we did the Avon Walk together back in 2015.
None of these walks are to new places. They are all repeats of walks done in the first part of the month.
May 17 – Beach Meadows
May 18 – Cherry Hill / Rissers
May 19 – Indian Path Common – Blue path.
May 23 – The Duck Pond and around
Tomorrow I hope to get out to Indian Path Common again to do the pink path. I’ve done the yellow, and the blue twice, so once I do the pink trail I will have completed the trails there.
Beach MeadowsBeach Meadows – it was windier than usual and the tide was higher than when we normally go.Beach Meadows – in addition to the fog, the waves were roaring in.Cherry Hill – if you look closely, you can see a surfer in the water. The tide was too high such that there wasn’t much beach to walk on.Rissers Beach – the fun rocks on the beach at Rissers.
After our cool walk yesterday at Cherry Hill beach, and with the tides not being ideal, we headed back to Beach Meadows. Although it is a shorter beach than Cherry Hill, it is wider – so even when the tides are in-between low and high there is still a lot of beach. With the weather being warmer, and it being Friday afternoon there were definitely more people at the beach – but still plenty of beach for Cali to run after the ball without having to worry about interactions with other people.
Cherry Hill is perhaps one of my favorite places to walk Cali. I get a good walk on the beach, and Cali gets to run after the ball. We are both in heaven.
Cherry Hill is a bit of a weird beach. It isn’t a bit at high tide. And, as we discovered again today, if the wind is going the wrong direction, then it isn’t much of a beach at low tide either. Today it was really windy. There were several surfers out enjoying the waves. The shorter beach meant that we had to do two “laps” of the beach in order to get to 3km.
It was also hot in town today – as much as 29 degrees! It was our first really warm day. The beach, on the other hand, was 14 degrees. I almost didn’t bring enough clothing. The weather guy on the news said that the wind would be from a direction that the coast would be warm – that clearly wasn’t the case at Cherry Hill, where we had a pretty strong on-shore wind – which interestly, a little inland was no wind at all. The microclimates around here an be rather fascinating.
If you look closely, you can see a surfer in the far distance (straight up from Cali’s tail).
A five minute drive from my house, there is an entry point to a series of ATV trails. It is not clear who owns the land, but the trails are used by locals to walk and local kids to play. I looked at the map and it doesn’t appear to be Crown Land, so someone owns it.
It was a lovely forested walk with many branches of trails, such that I could return several times to hike different areas of it. It definitely is not flat.
Since this is a local use only type thing, I’m not going to share a map of the location. If you are in Bridgewater and want to know, private message me.
