The TransCanada Trail on Vancouver Island leads south from Nanaimo to Shawnigan Lake, where it currently ends, just short of the Capital Regional District (CRD). Cyclists and hikers destined for Victoria must travel over the Malahat, a busy highway, or take the ferry across Finlayson Arm to Brentwood.
Now, the CRD has announced that it is in negotiations to complete the final 750 metres of trail that would establish a link to the Galloping Goose in Langford, allowing users to continue on a "Rails to Trails" multi-user facility into Victoria, or, once south of the Malahat, up the Saanich Peninsula to the BC Ferries terminal at Swartz Bay.
The CRD expects to finish this link within three years, enabling a "triangle route" from the Lower Mainland via BC Ferries to Nanaimo, south to Victoria and back to the Mainland (or the reverse, of course!)
Read more (including a map) in the Times-Colonist newspaper article at http://www.timescolonist.com/Parks+officials+plan+close+national+trail/5281421/story.html#ixzz1VxZvgyLv
Beyond this, we can all hope that the existing trails north of Nanaimo can be linked together, to provide a facility all the way to Courtenay, where you can take a ferry to Powell River and the Sunshine Coast. That would be a very popular "circular tour" of some of BC's best country!
This is Fantastic News! I am asked about this all time and it will be so neat to have the final "leg" in place!
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