Hiking Minister’s Trail (taken from The Coast)
Getting there: Highway 103 west to the Hammond Plains Road exit, turn right, pass the shopping centre on your left. Continue about a kilometre up the hill to a green gate on your right.
What to do: Hike/mountain bike 3 kilometres one way, return via the same route.
Trail condition: The old jeep road quickly descends into an undeveloped area behind the suburban development of Stillwater Lake and back up Minister Hill.
The first lake along the trail, appropriately named Land of Laziness Lake. The second lake, Camp Hill Lake, is less visited, but still acts as the dumping ground for suburban excess.
I've been told, and the maps show, that this trail reaches through the woods behind Minister Hill all the way to Timberlea. Perhaps. But after wading hip-deep through ATV-eroded stretches of what used-to-be trail, I gave up on finding the route. (Suburban development on the Timberlea side has also obscured or destroyed that end of the trail.) In the back portions of the trail there are also a couple of hunting blinds, so beware.
Cool stuff: Err, if you can see past the garbage, the lakes provide a bit of serenity. Maybe one of these days the parents of these ATV drivers of Stillwater will clean up their kids' mess, but more likely it won't be "cleaned up" until some developer comes in, chops down all the trees and builds the inevitable subdivision named after the trees they cut down. But I digress…
