Long Awaited Hike Down Riley Creek August 19, 2012

Some of the hikers tried this last Fall but were defeated by the speed and depth of the river, and were unable to cross.

So after the dry spell we've been experiencing 8 of us piled into a couple of cars and headed to Rennell Sound destination Riley Creek Beach ...

"Beauty is not always captured the first time you see something. Real beauty sometimes deepens as you get to know something better." D. Fitzpatrick from a Rug Hooking book.

That quotation seems to capture our day ... we had half of the group who had never been on this hike and some had never been to Rennell Sound. Some of us know this one just keeps getter better and the others seemed quite captured on first view and were even planning how to return.

This trail isn't maintained but is fairly easy to navigate other than the river crossing ... which isn't difficult but ..... on the way down, the only person who brought river crossing extra shoes managed to toss them into the river twice [shoes float quite well] so the others could use them but instead of 2 dry shoes ended up with 3 wet and 1 dry!

Beach debris is at the broken up stage ... styrofoam of various colours is now in smaller pieces. Remember when Jim Fulton, later to become our MP, organized beach clean-ups ... they are needed again!

Lots of pinks jumping at the mouth and a few spotted in the river further up  .... creek is pretty low, which was good for us as we were chased by the tide up to the old fallen bridge crossing.

Did I mention the wonderful cinnamon buns that we enjoyed just before our push to head backwards ... it is about 1.5 hrs each way with a few detours around windfalls ... lots of huckleberries too.

Busy, busy, busy August 13, 2012

Sometimes the summers are just too busy .... August has put us through our paces in the stamina category ... first weekend was the Fall Fair ... great fun; second weekend was the Music Festival ... a great success; so by the 13th we were dragging.

Some were still away, some sewing to recuperate, some gardening, that just left those with enthusiastic visitors ... so off we headed under the pretext of golfing in Masset [it was sort of sprinkling]. A leisurely drive to Port were we picked up another hiker and then headed to Pure Lake where we walked in with some bike tourers.

Next to Masset, trying to decide where to eat ... which became complicated! Next we visited Old Masset and old DND housing ... still a bit drizzly so we abandoned golfing and headed back to Port to walk the Sunset Trail before supper.

The walk was perfect, great for walking and talking and we saw a new variety of mushrooms "leaverwhereits" a special genus whose full name is something like "Leave it where it is!"

We walked down to the watching tower and you never know what you might see from that tower at the far end of the trail! Can you read it?

Rennell Sound on Sunday!!!!