Galloping Goose Trail in Sooke

• Author: WantsToTravelMore
• Accommodation: Vancouver Island

While on the last few hours of our trip to Sooke, we wanted to see one of the train trestles on the Galloping Goose Trail. This trail is part of the Part of the Trans Canada Trail. It begins in Leechtown (a former gold rush town), north of the Sooke Potholes Regional Park, to the Johnson Street Bridge in downtown Victoria.

Our tiny 20 minute walk began after we investigated the Sooke Potholes Regional Park. A local said that the best way to see a trestle was to access the Galloping Goose Trail just north of Meota Drive, off of the east site of Sooke River Road. There is a small parking lot right across the road from the private Sherwood Estates and it’s south of the Juan de Fuca Salmon Restoration Society.

There are two paths. One heads immediately upstream while another is on the flat. There’s no indication which way to do, so we got lucky, took the flat and headed north.

The path is wonderfully treed and you can see lots of moss on the trees and listen to and see birds of a variety of types. It was mid-March and it was Robin season and they were making lots of happy noises in the brush.

We soon came to the Charters Creek Trestle, which had a wonderful boardwalk, a stunning view of the river below — due to the time of year it was flowing! The trees went up above your head as high as you’d imagine for a BC forest but also as deep as it was high into the canyon riverbed below.

As photos in the gallery will show, the older train structure has had the boardwalk put over it. It didn’t take much imagination for us to picture an old diesel train rumbling across the bridge. It must have been a wonderful sight every time the engineer crossed that bridge.

One day when it’s warmer, I really want to take a bicycle on the Galloping Goose Trail and see it all.