Harbour to harbour ride, Victoria to Sooke B.C.

 Harbour to Harbour Ride
Victoria to Sooke, BC
August 16, 2020

I’m in BC where I’m waiting out the pandemic. I went for a solo early-morning ride from the Victoria Inner Harbour to Sooke and its harbour on the western edge of the region. The region of 380,000 people is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island and has developed a wonderful network of shared-use trails on abandoned rail lines. This ride included the Galloping Goose Trail, the E&N Rail Trail plus local roads outside the city.

The Galloping Goose is a 55km recreational trail between Victoria and the abandoned gold mining town of Leechtown, north of Sooke, on a former rail line built during the First World War. The trail was named after the gas-powered passenger rail car that ran in a wobbly way on the line from 1922 to 1931.

The E&N Rail Trail (not shown on map but roughly running between View Royal and Victoria) is built alongside the existing tracks of the (unused) Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway. It was built by a coal baron on Vancouver Island in the 1880’s as a condition to bring BC into Confederation, in exchange for generous land grants.

A beautiful start in the Victoria Inner Harbour, across from the provincial Legislature.

Galloping Goose - Selkirk Trestle across the Gorge Waterway

 

Paved Galloping Goose in urban areas

 

Dirt Galloping Goose in rural areas

 

Sooke Harbour where the Galloping Goose swings north to Leechtown

Rock cut on the Galloping Goose is a reminder of the trail’s railway history

 

Sooke is on the edge of a rainforest, created by winter storms coming off the Pacific Ocean

 

Farmland in Metchosin on the return ride

 

Strait of Juan de Fuca and beach is not far off the Goose

Turn-off for the E&N Rail Trail

 

 

Rail Trail scene …. abandonment of passenger rail on Vancouver Island in recent years

 

End of the ride at the Victoria Inner Harbour on the recently opened Wharf Street cycle lane

Birdie Munger