Uplands Park walk (New route!)

Tidbit and I have been spending a fair amount of time recently at Uplands Park in Oak Bay. We love it there because it features a bit of everything we like in a walk. The Camas is out right now and we love the way it covers the fields of Uplands Park in a blanket of blue-violet leaves. We love taking off from the main gravel trails and walking around the rocky outcroppings and venturing down some of the singletrack trails to see whatever treats they might reveal. We never have to struggle to find a bit of shade, or some open sky. It's flat, easy to walk, and most of the time, it's pretty quiet.

As you may know, Uplands Park consists of two parts - the south-eastern section bordering Haro Strait, which everyone just calls Cattle Point - and the main part of the park, all 26 hectares, across Beach Drive and stretching well into the Uplands community. The park is home to a rich variety of flora and fauna, offers superb views of the sea, a truly varied landscape, and spectacular displays of flowering meadows.

As we've done previously, we'll meet at the North end of Scenic Drive. Scenic Drive is the 1/2-km route that takes you from Beach Drive to the Cattle Point boat launches. It's one-way. You'll enter at one end of Scenic Drive, and drive almost all the way around until you see me and my Victoria Small Dog Walk and Play Group signs and check-in table. There is plenty of parking.

If you look at the attached map (in the Photos section of this event), you'll see that this year I've divided the walk into 3 sections.

1. Our walk starts with the 2.9 km Green section, which is the main portion of our walk. We'll exit Scenic Drive, and then head down Beach Drive to the main entrance of Uplands Park. We'll then walk directly to the biggest camas field, which is rimmed by a fairly new wooden boardwalk. As we work our way around the West side of the park, we'll mostly stick to the wide gravel main trail, except for a brief dive into the forest, just because we can. When we come upon the northern reaches of the park, we'll go visit some of those rocky outcroppings I was mentioning earlier. It's a nice change of pace from the main trails.

From here on, we'll mostly be leaving the main trails behind as it's more interesting over on the side trails. The footing is a bit different now. You'll have to pay a bit more attention with your steps, but that shouldn't really dissuade anyone from coming.

As we complete the Green section, if you've walked enough, I have you in mind...

2. The Blue section of our walk is a fairly direct 0.4 km return to where we started. We'll take the easiest route through the SE portion of the park, ending up at the Oak Bay Cenotaph on Beach Drive. If you want to leave us here, then just cross Beach Drive and you'll find yourself back at the Scenic Drive exit.

3. For those who would like a bit longer walk, we'll circle the Cenotaph and take the 1.0 km Yellow section that I've mapped out, which completes a loop back to the main entrance of Uplands Park, and then takes a leisurely stroll along Scenic Drive and back to our vehicles.

It's a 3.16 km or 4.21 km walk which I estimate will take us 65 or 85 minutes.
I've attached a number of photos I've taken recently. As you can see, it's really beautiful.