Monday is the perfect day to be off from work, so I went on a bike ride with my friend Ryan and his wife Cordelia. Our destination was the scenic Cowchian River Valley, about 50 km outside of Victoria. We took the car to the Kinsol Tressle parking lot by Shawnigan Lake, and rode our bikes from there on the old railbed trail. This had been a line of the Canadian National Railway servicing the booming lumber and mining industry at the beginning of the last century, but towards the 1970’s it was closed down. A few decades later it was reopened as a trail for hiking, bicycling and horseback riding.
The yellow flowers on the right are called skunk cabbage (Lysichiton americanus) with a sweet scent that I actually liked… until I Cordelia told me of its common name. Skunk? Of course it’s gotta stink! The white flowers on the left are a bit more problematic type. Heracleum mantegazzianum or more commonly known as giant hogweed is an invasive species with some pretty unpleasant properties. The sap of the plant causes phototoxicity, meaning that if it gets on your skin it can cause severe burns if it is exposed to sunlight within the next 48 hours. This can be so bad that it may require hospitalization, resulting in long lasting scars. Although the local authorities are trying to reduce its presence, warning signs advise hikers to be careful not to touch this plant.
About halfway through our journey we came to another bridge called the Holt Creek Trestle. This one wasn’t in such a good condition as the Kinsol Trestle, and in fact had been closed for horses and bicycles (though we could push our bikes across without a problem. This trestle came highly recommended, as there was supposedly some awesome graffiti on the bottom, so we took the chance and climbed down on the slippery wooden ladders. The tags at the bottom were okay I guess, ranging from decent practice runs to the occasional good-looking one. Compared to the experience of climbing down the heavy duty wooden trusses, and watching the river flow underneath, the graffiti was more like an excuse… similarly to the nettles.
Oh yeah, the nettles! At some point along the trail, where it passes quite close to the Cowichan River, we decided to stop and cut some. We had passed a number of patches, but kept on riding until we felt that it was time to turn around. So we cut some at various locations, and in the end we ended up bringing home two large boxes full of it.
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