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Woo-za— a cold and windy day in White Rock! Four bikers met at South Surrey’s Rec centre. I changed the meeting point to the Rec centre because parking is free. As such, we needed to bike through Sunnyside Acres Urban Forest Park, (secret jewel of South Surrey). To Katy’s surprise we biked through a forest to join up with the Ancient Semiahmoo trail.
The plaque at the Semiahmoo trail head said the following:
“This trail was an ancient Indian travel-way linking tribal villages in the south to the salmon grounds of the Fraser river. The first white explorers, led by Chief trader, James MacMillan of the Hudson’s Bay Company, passed here in December of 1824. Using the Nicomekl and Salmon rivers, they reached the Fraser and located the site of Fort Langley.”
The Semiahmoo wagon road was built in 1873 and Port Elgin was created. You can still visit the 1921 Elgin Centre School house and the oldest intact farm complex in Surrey; the Stewart farm built in 1894.
At the Stewart farm, we sat on the front porch of a “Queen Anne” style farmhouse for our morning elevenses (snack).
From there we biked the Nicomekl trail, around Elgin park and stopped at the delicious Fieldstone bakery for dessert and a tea break. Katy and Pam were in heaven! I think we spent a good hour enjoying the sunshine and munching on treats.
Now we really needed to do some serious biking as we had eaten more calories than we were using up!
We biked over to Blackie spit and walked our bikes to the tip of the spit in the Nicomekl River. The views were spectacular – we could see the Lions, Stanley Park and the North Shore. Then we biked to cozy Crescent Beach, with its beautiful cottages and luxury homes. We took a short detour to look at the village of Beecher Place which is packed with restaurants offering seafood. We were tempted to stop and eat again! At the end of the beach, we rode/pushed our bikes up a long steep gravel road called Sandy trail.
From there we biked down quiet streets with monster houses built on the cliff overlooking spectacular views to the ocean. Between the houses, we found a lovely hike down to an isolated beach called 131E Greenbelt lookout. We stopped at Kwomais Park for our second lunch break or was it our third? We had amphitheatre style seating looking down to the sparkling ocean, Orcas, San Juan, Saturna, and Mayne islands, as well as Point Roberts.
Then we biked downhill into White Rock and the Marine Drive sign said that bikes can take up the traffic lane. We could ride guilt free in the middle of the road and cars could not pass or honk us. The speed limit was 30 km.
We then rode /pushed our bikes up Kent Street and zigzagged through quiet neighbourhoods, sneaking between houses onto hidden grassy lanes back to the Semiahmoo trail, and back to our cars.
All in all, a lovely day spent with even lovelier people!
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This topic was modified 3 years ago by
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This topic was modified 3 years ago by
Thank you Ye for planning and leading the bike ride.
It’s well planned. We enjoyed being the tourists in your own town. There are so many treasures and interesting stories that we just have to discover.
We could not have picked another better day.
Here is the link to my photos: https://northshorehikers.org/forums/topic/trip-photos-albums/
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