A Walk In Beckwith Park, Victoria

So far my vacation has been heavy on bumming around outside and light on USMLE studying (like twelve-pages-this-entire-past-weekend light, gah). Here's my new solution:

Best of both worlds, right?

Besides hanging out with family, meeting up with old friends, and eating all of my mom's cooking, I've been going on tons of walks. I've hardly been away a year, but Joni Mitchell was right, that's all it took for me to realize how beautiful all those parks, beaches, and neighbourhood walks I'd long taken for granted actually are.

Today my mom and I took a sunny afternoon walk to Beckwith Park, in the Lake Hill neighbourhood. Although Beckwith Park is known for its playing fields, its duck pond is really its hidden gem. Encircled by a gravel trail, it's an easy, under-1 km walk, on relatively level ground.

Best of all, it's in a pocket of garry oak meadow, Victoria's most endangered (and arguably most beautiful) ecosystem. Though Edmonton's elms are spectacular, no tree in my opinion can match the West Coast's gnarled, rugged, dendritic garry oaks.

From the time when my third-grade classmate slipped down the bank of the pond on a class walk to racing around it during timed runs in PE class to slipping in myself while checking out a frog, lots of my school memories feature this duck pond. As I'm sure it does for lots of kids who went to school in the Lake Hill area, this duck pond -- cheesy as it sounds -- really does hold a place in my heart. It was, however, my mom's first visit, so we made sure to take our time looking out for turtles (spotted half a dozen basking on a log!) and frogs (no such luck today).

We saw something even better than frogs though -- ten mallard ducklings!! Under the watchful eye of their mother, they scrambled up the bank and pecked around for a while right beside the trail. Gosh they were cute -- yellow and black fluffballs plodding around on oversized flippers. It was a good thing they swam away after a while, or there would have been nothing stopping me from watching them all day! Here are way too many cell phone photos:

Even without babies, there is plenty of duck entertainment at the Beckwith pond. The duck pond is home to at least a few species, including lots of wood ducks, which I haven't seen much around other parts of Victoria. If you're in the area or interested in ornithology, it's worth a stop by!

Well, hopefully I'll strike a balance between enjoying time outdoors and preparing for Step 1. At least I'll have a good reserve of vitamin D when I eventually do hole up and study!