Come For a Walk With Us

Anytime from about mid afternoon on, every time we make a move to head outside, the dogs start going nuts. It's walkies time!  You'd think they were locked in crates all day.  Some days we stick close to home and just go up or down the road, or around the block.  Other times we go down to the dyke or wherever else we can think of that is a bit of a change of pace.  It's always preferable for it to be at least partially off leash.  Abbotsford has three official off leash areas.  I don't want to go somewhere that has a lot of dogs, as Luna isn't particularly great with dogs she doesn't know.  She is kind of snarky, and then if they want to play and start running, she gets into barking/herding mode.

I suggested we head to the east to the off leash area along the Sumas drainage canal, where we hadn't been before.  You take the north parallel road from the Whatcom Rd/Hwy 1 interchange and park just east of Atkinson Rd on the north side of the canal in the parking area.  This part is called the McKay Creek trail.

There are spots were there is fairly easy access to the water, so it would be nicer in warmer weather for the dogs to swim.

That white bridge in the distance was where we had to cross over to the dyke on the south side.

The end of the trail comes out almost in some one's yard, and you walk right past a small paddock with these two guys in it:)  

I told Larry that Pride needed a goat buddy too.

The we crossed over that white bridge and headed down the dyke on the south side, heading east towards Chilliwack.  

Calli kept going down to the steep bank to the water, and then because she doesn't have any push with her back legs, she couldn't always get all the way back up. Sometimes one of us would have to scramble down part way and grab her collar and haul her up, and every time Luna would charge over and it was kind of like she was giving Calli heck!

In one of the corn fields there was quite a large flock of Trumpeter Swans  spread out.  They are huge birds.  

I don't think I've seen them before.

And on the far bank there was a Great Blue Heron

We've definitely seen those before.

You can just barely see the heron along the bank to the right of center.

Before you get to this area there is a rifle range right up against the mountain.  It was a little noisy.   I thought it might bother Jake, but he was okay with it.

Also, the freeway is about half a mile or so away, so there is the constant roar of that.

And here we came across the rare Sumas Monster, kind of like a cross between a crocodile and a rhinoceros 

We didn't actually get any sun, but we could see blue sky in the distance, shining on the mountain peaks, and the view was beautiful

That's Mt. Cheam on the left

We didn't walk all the way to the end of the dyke, but turned around just past this tree with a large nest in it.  An eagle's maybe?

On the way back we spotted this, a cormorant.  Not what I expected to see here, I would think of them being more along the ocean.

And last but not least, a group of mallards snoozing on a log.

We were walking for at least an hour and a half.  We only met two other dogs, but as we were coming back on the south side, we did spot a few other people heading out from the parking lot on the north side.  It was well worth the drive:)