July 4 – Dickson Falls and Hopewell Rocks

Two very amazing places today. Dickson Falls was unexpected. We had been to Hopewell Rocks twice before but we liked it so much we had to go back. 

It was a nice sunny day and not too hot. Since low tide was at 4:30 you can’t go down to the ocean floor at Hopewell Rocks until around 1 so we decided to do one of the shorter hikes in the park first.

The Dickson Falls Trail is one of the most popular. It is a loop to the falls and then there are two ways to to close the loop. One is slightly longer. As it is popular and used by a lot of families it is mostly a wooden walkway with many stairs.

You walk along side Dickson Creek for a while.

Then you can get right up close to the falls.

Then up to the top.

We took the longer loop that continues alongside the stream for a while.

When we finished we decided we liked the place so much we went back around again. Even though it was billed as very popular there were very few people here. On our second time around we had the walkway to ourselves for at least half an hour. We took the shorter path back. Here there was a lookout down back to the falls.

Pictures don’t do place justice. It has some of the best scenery on the trip so far. We may go back again.

This a view from a lookout to the ocean, at the trailhead.

We went back to the RV for lunch and a quick nap. We left for Hopewell Rocks at about 2 pm taking the scenic route past a wide beach looking towards Cape Enrage.

The GPS route back to the main highway took me on a somewhat suspect shortcut. Usually I ignore it but today we followed to see what happened. The start was a nice paved secondary road. Then it wanted me to turn here.

Why not. Off we go on this narrow dirt road between some farmers fields.

At one point it tried to turn me onto a very narrow track on top of what looked like a dike. That was too much. We eventually found our way back to the highway with no backtracking.

Now on to the Hopewell Rocks and lots of pictures of the flower pot rocks.

Jennie had her boots on so she did lots of treks out to the water to investigate. She had to be careful as the mud threatened to suck her boot off.

A very muddy hermit crab and maybe the body of another one.

We got as far as a point where you had to scramble over a lot of large rocks to continue. In our current footwear we declined. This was where the huge mud flats begin going off to the horizon.

There was what looks like a river channel in the middle.

In case you are stupid enough to get cut off here by the tide they have a platform where you can wait the many hours for the tide to go back down.

Jennie always heads to the water.

We very slowly headed back.

As we got back near the steps I saw that these kids seemed to be having fun in the mud.

Even their mum was into it.

So while Jennie headed farther down the shore.

In I went.

It felt great. It was very soft as it oozed between your toes.

This the best I could get Jennie to do. A dirty boot.

It was kind of tough walking in the flip flops afterwards as I kept slipping out of them.

A last look around.

And we dragged ourselves up the stairs.

We wanted to stay but it was about 6 and we were getting kind of hungry. The drive back to the RV took about 45 minutes.

First we had to wash our feet and shoes.

A great day.