Category: Seven years and counting

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.

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.

We branched out yesterday and went for a walk along the Adventure Trail – which is a rail trail between Bridgewater and Mahone Bay. There are so any rail trails in this province! Anyways, this was a nice walk but not one worth repeating. A couple times while walking we were passed by a series of ATVs and Dirt Bikes. The particular portion of the trail we were on is definitely well used for motorized traffic. There are enough other rail trail segments that are prettier and have less traffic that there is no need to try this one again.

Boxing? Yes boxing.

One of the recreation activities hosted by the Municipality of the District of Lunenburg (MODL) is called multisport. It has typically been for kids. It exposes them to a bunch of a different sports – something different each week. I thought it was cool, so when a friend mentioned that they were doing a female multisport for adults I figured I would try it out. On Wednesday night I went to the first session – boxing.

I never imagined myself trying out boxing. I never imagined that I’d love it. I had a great time. I dislike the “fight” aspect of the sport, but all the other parts of the sport are fun. It was a great workout, both physically and mentally, and the people were a lot of fun. There was lots of laughter as well as lots of punching and moving around.

Today, I got out to the beach again – this time for a 4km walk. We went to Crescent Beach – a not-so-original name for a beach, as there are several different Crescent Beaches in Nova Scotia. This particular one is the closest beach for dog walking. With the day starting out rainy and cold, I had not thought I would make it out for a beach walk – but when I finished my marking at 4pm, and the sun came out, and the low tide wasn’t until 6pm, I figured why not. I’m so glad I did – it was a gorgeous evening walk with the sun shining and almost no breeze.

Sue and I walked 4pm. Cali ran about 7-8km. I think she will sleep well tonight 🙂

I didn’t have enough time between meetings today to get in the car and go someplace. Instead I decided to take my usual walk around the “Duck Pond” (officially called Town Pond) and turn that in an official walk. In order for it to count, it had to be at least 3 km, and the normal “long” walk is 2km, so I did an extra lap of the pond.

The pond brings a lot of entertainment at different times of year. There are, of course, the ducks – which I have trained Cali to ignore – ironically by giving her a duck treat if she ignores them. Then there are the turtles that enjoy basking in the sun, the shy mergansers that visit in the spring and fall, and the muskrats that swim and play in the pond.

The term “common” was new to me when I moved to Nova Scotia. Common is used to mean land that is owned by one of the governments – typically municipal – as the provincial lands are known as Crown Land. The common are often setup with hiking trails or other shared uses. There are two near us, River Ridge Common and Indian Path Common – both have trails that I love to hike on.

The low tides are too early and too late in the day at the moment, so hiking is a better option. The more established paths like River Ridge Common are less likely to have ticks, but at this time of year especially that is always a risk – so I put on long pants, long socks, and I spray my pants and ankles for a natural tick repellent spray. I don’t need to worry about Cali because she takes a tick medication, that if a tick bites her it kills the tick. Also, there is a Lyme disease vaccine for dogs, so she is vaccinated. If only they had one for humans!

Want to join my challenge? Leave a comment with your hikes/walks below.