Walking Bowker Creek - Shelbourne Valley and Cedar Hill Edition
I am not sure if anybody has been waiting for this piece, but here it is, the final installment of my Walking Bowker Creek series. If you missed the first two articles you can read them here and here. This walk has the most northern portion of “daylighted” Bowker Creek that I am aware of. Apart from four small parts on busy roads, this walk almost completely takes place on trails and sidestreets. That said for those that are expecting to spend the whole walk alongside the creek, you are going to be disappointed. Still, it is a super nice walk, I just went on it again a few days ago.
The one caveat for this walk is that there is no cafe along the route, so if you want a coffee you are going to have to get it before you leave. As an alternative, McRae’s Bistro is about halfway along the route so you could theoretically stop in for a pint before you finish the walk.
This walk starts at the clubhouse for the Cedar Hill Golf Course. There are bike racks there as well as a lot of parking. The first part and the last part of the walk use the eastern golf course border path. I suppose you could go either way, but for this one I went north towards King’s Pond. As you walk along make sure you keep your eyes on the course to avoid becoming a bogey for one of the golfers. I would honestly walk the path around the golf course all the time, if there wasn’t that ever present danger of taken one in the head. Still the scenery around the course is stunning. You are going to continue next to the golf course for 400 metres and then turn left onto Cranbrook Place. [Edit: as a reader has pointed out there is a discrepancy between the description here and the map, as the map shows Glacier Place as the turnoff spot. Both work but the one that I usually do is Cranbrook Place] If you want to take a detour up to King’s Pond and back, it is worth it and those ponds up there are actually feeder water sources for a tributary of Bowker Creek. Once you are off the golf course, you are in a very quiet Saanich neighbourhood with beautiful Garry Oaks and well tended gardens. Cranbrook Place t’s into Doncaster Drive. Here you will want to turn right and walk down the hill about 150 metres until you see a mid-block pedestrian path on your left.
This is a truly charming little walkway that winds a little as it takes you down to Cedar Hill Road. When you get there, the Doncaster Grocery is on your right. It is worth it to pop in, even if you are just wanting a juice or some candy, because this is one of the few real neighbourhood corner stores that are still open in this area of Saanich, plus their sign is amazing. In front of the grocery store is a crosswalk that will take you over to Rowan Street. As you walk along Rowan Street you will see Doncaster Elementary on your right. If school is not in, you can cross just along the northern edge of the school property, behind a row of houses and there is a path that will come out on Thistle Street. Thistle Street as it turns east becomes Cedar Avenue which you can follow until you reach Shelbourne Street. This is one of two parts along busy streets, but it is short.
You are going to walk along Shelbourne just until you get to Derby Road, which is just the first street and you will turn right onto it. You will only walk along Derby for a short 50 metres before you turn to the left onto Browning Street. Continue along Browning till the end and you will finally be where Bowker Creek emerges on your left at the entrance to Browning Gyro Park.
Browning Park is one of those hidden jewels of a park. If you travel along Shelbourne regularly you may have seen the playground just north of McRae but it is actually so much larger than that. In fact, I would say that more than half of the park space is on the west side of the creek over a bridge from the playground. There is also a basketball court here and picnic tables here. If you haven’t spent time in this park before, then will be a treat. What truly makes the park magical, of course, is that Bowker Creek runs right through the middle of it. It gives the park an extra soothing and beautiful aspect to it. Unfortunately, this is the most you are going to see Bowker Creek on this walk.
Oh this is the spot on the walk to cross Shelbourne for a pint if you are wanting to, otherwise continue along the westside of Browning Park down to McRae. You will want to do a quick turn to the right and then to the left where you will see the Bowker Creek Greenway sign at the foot of another path. Soon you will be crossing a bridge over top of Bowker Creek. The bridge ends at Wordsworth Street. You can follow this road down till you get to North Dairy across from Hillside Mall. Here you will have the second really busy walk but it is again just for a block. Turn Right on to North Dairy and walk till you get to Keats Street, about 100m down the road. Turn onto Keats Street and walk until you see another little bridge going back across Bowker Creek. The last daylighted piece of Bowker Creek before it heads under Hillside Mall is actually one more block west at Shelly and North Dairy but crossing it on the bridge is nicer. After crossing the bridge, you won’t be seeing Bowker Creek again on this walk.
After saying goodbye to the creek, walk back up to McRae and turn left. McRae is a beautiful residential road that narrows as it gets close to Cedar Hill Road. There is a lovely tree canopied little park here at the end of it called Wetherby Park. If you want to pause before the last leg, this is a great option. From McRae, you will want to cross Cedar Hill to go north on Doncaster. Unfortunately, there is no crosswalk here, so be careful as traffic seems to move pretty quickly despite the size of the road. Once across, you will walk one block up Doncaster and then turn left on Ocean View Road. At the end of Ocean View Road you can access the eastern trail along Cedar Hill Golf Course. From here it is about another 400 metres back to the golf clubhouse and the parking lot. I expect the whole walk takes about 45 minutes to an hour is you are taking it slower.
I hope that you have enjoyed this series of walks along Bowker Creek. I do wish that we were looking at having more of it daylighted. I still maintain that Hillside Mall could one of the best places to do it, with possibly having an open creek through the parking lot and maybe even open it up inside the mall too. If I missed anything big along the route let me know. I have included a little map of the route below.
