Another week, another trail walk. This week my fellow co-workers tackled trekking around Colchester Pond. Being the only Floridian of the bunch, I had to laugh at all the humidity talk that ensued in Sharon’s description. But then again, they laugh at me during my visits when its 60 degrees outside and I have my winter coat on. Here’s what Sharon writes…
Pretty Colchester Pond was last week’s destination. Four dedicated (foolhardy?)walkers braved the heat, humidity, and air-quality warnings to take a stroll around the pond. Pulling into the parking lot gave us a great bird’s-eye view of the large pond, and I thought, “Wow, we’re going to walk around that? That looks longer than the advertised 2.5-3.0 miles!”
Several large birds quickly caught our attention and we decided to travel counterclockwise in order to get closer to the shoreline where the birds were hanging out. We saw a heron, a cormorant, and an osprey. The osprey made a spectacular dive into the water in search of fish (or maybe he was just hot). We walked on double-planked boardwalks close to the shoreline and then rambled through fields on mowed paths at the south end of the pond. Then we entered onto a wide woods path that we followed for the remainder of the route. We tackled several hills and saw a few toads.
A short spur path led to an outlook at the northern end of the pond. There were wooden slats nailed to a slanting tree trunk and a rope for swinging out into the water. Back on the main trail, we hit a couple more outlooks to the water and saw a couple canoeists.
We walked past a large field and then were soon heading up a final hill back to the parking lot, feeling either lighter (from the exercise) or heavier (from the sweat and humidity) from our efforts. Based on it taking 2 hours to circumnavigate the pond, as well as info from my mapping software, I’d say we hiked nearly 4 miles.
