Late November, 2016, we were looking for new places to hike that weren’t too far from home, and weren’t too long. Maya was getting pretty slow at this point, and we were limiting the length of her walks. Surprisingly enough we had never walked any of the trails in Strathroy, so we decided to drive up and walk a few.

We walked around Cuddy Woods first and then ended up at the east side of the Sydenham River, and parked at the St. Clair Region Conservation Authority parking lot. There is one of the access point for one of the trails. Maya was all cuddled up in the back sleeping, so we let her rest while we went for a short walk.

The day was cool and partly sunny. The trees had lost their leaves and by the end of November, Strathroy had already seen some snowfall. With winter coats and gloves on, we headed toward the river to see where the trail lead.

The beginning of the trail was this narrow path between the river and large backyards overlooking the park.

There were Canada Geese and other waterfowl congregated on the river while they still could. I would imagine the Sydenham freezes over fairly early here since we could barely detect much of a current and it didn’t seem too deep.

Along the trail there were some newer benches for people to enjoy. Across the river is also part of the park and more benches can be seen.

The area obviously is quite marshy and is often underwater whenever the river is inundated by rainfall, either locally or upstream.

As we continued along the trail started getting crowded by brush and grasses.

The weather was perfect for gorgeous reflections in the calm water. It was definitely feeling and looking like winter early that year.

We found a large number of trees that had recently been accosted by beaver. There were obviously more than a couple of beaver in the area. In the background you can see another large tree with that distinct area missing it’s bark. I was surprised at the size of trees they were selecting. These trees were too large for them to use for their lodge, or for food, and they didn’t even have a lot of branches coming off the trunk.

A longer boardwalk was recently repaired and the trail continued on but we turned back to pour ourselves a hot cup of choco and to snuggle Maya.