| Sooke
is a scenic half hour drive from British Columbia's capital
city, Victoria. The Sooke area boasts beautiful natural venues
such as sandy beaches, clear rivers and lakes, and acres of forested
lands laced with hiking trails for all types of hikers from the
beginner to advanced.
Local
to Sooke Ocean View is the Galloping
Goose Trail, a hiking, biking, and cycling trail that runs
from Victoria, past Sooke to Leechtown, a now-abandoned goldrush
town. Matheson Lake is perfect for summer swimming or passive
canoeing. Whiffen Spit is a short drive past Sooke, about 10 minutes
from Sooke Ocean View. Farther away are French Beach, China Beach,
and the Juan
de Fuca Marine Trail.
Sooke
itself boasts west coast style giftshops, movie rentals, coffee
shops, and excellent dining. There are a number of events held
in Sooke throughout the year: All
Sooke Day (July) draws crowds from all over the world to compete
in the annual logging sports show, family picnic, and games day.
The Fine Arts Show (July) is an exhibition of Vancouver Island's
artists' work.
Sooke Trails The famed West Coast Trail gets
all the publicity and the popular nearby Juan de Fuca Marine Trail
is a close runner-up. But a lesser-known trail completes a hat
trick of premier shoreline hiking opportunities on southern Vancouver
Island, and avid pathfinders also might want to check out a few
other compelling routes in the region.
The
10-kilometer (6.2-mile) Coast Trail in the 3,512-acre East
Sooke Regional Park offers a beautiful hike along a rocky,
jagged shore dotted with intriguing places. Along its length,
you'll find petroglyphs, sandy pocket beaches, flowery meadows
and orchards from a pioneer farm, an old cabin once used by operators
of a coastal salmon trap, and cliffs where pelagic cormorants
roost.
Considered
one of the best day hikes in all of Canada -- camping is not allowed
-- the Coast Trail is so up and down and winding and rugged that
it is rated a challenging hike that takes six to eight hours one
way, even for experienced hikers. Some hiking guidebooks compare
it favorably in terms of scenery to the Juan de Fuca and West
Coast trails.
"East
Sooke Park is probably now the most popular outing of the club,"
says Ron Armstrong, president and one of the founders of Victoria
Club Tread, one of the two very active outdoors groups based in
the B.C. capital. "It's the meat and potatoes of Club Tread
because of the variety of terrain and the flora you'll find there,
the coastal forest of arbutus (madrona) and fir, sword ferns and
salal."
Websites
of Interest:
Victoria
is a portal to travel methods:
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