The following article is written by West Kelowna columnist Deborah Greaves, who has agreed to work with Catherine Mamo. Deborah writes about outdoor activities, businesses and places for publications and contract clients, and is outside every day.

Visit Deborah’s website at www.airwaterearth.ca

If you have to go cross-town shopping and you’re in Kelowna’s ‘big-box’ area, you may be pleasantly surprised to discover a place of respite just a few minutes’ travel away. You’ll find a natural area near the intersection of Enterprise and Banks Roads.

Like many of our less-celebrated Okanagan Valley parks, this one is sometimes a little abused. In the off-leash dog park, located next to the pond near the beginning of the trails, graffiti adorns a nearby wall, the portable washroom and the lone picnic table. There’s often a bit of litter in the parking lot, the leftover daytime hints of nighttime skulduggery.

Yet, the whispering leaves of a huge tree that shades the parking lot and the birds swimming in the waters of the pond are uninjured by this lack of human respect. The trails beckon.

Mill Creek journeys through this peaceful area. It’s a beleaguered yet intrepid creek that’s come from miles away, burbling contentedly and surrounded here once more by graceful trees, shrubs and grasses. This creek supports a wide variety of birds and animals, but passing as it has
for years through Kelowna’s industrial, shopping and residential districts,
it has endured much.

With a little physical help lately from community groups and a small environmental remediation crew, Mill Creek has become more resistant to foolish human behaviours.

You came down a gravel driveway between Shaw Cable and a BMW auto dealership on Enterprise Road to find this place. From the gravelled square, you see the shimmering pond. It’s edged in cattails and is host to herons, waterfowl and the occasional exuberant dog.

Though you might want to put down a towel first to protect your clothes against everything from muddy paw prints to ashes, you can sit at the table in the fenced off-leash dog park and watch the action in the pond while you sip a drink.  Some days you can observe a heron, fishing.

If you by-pass the fenced doggie park, you can walk the trails along the meandering creek. The wide path of fine gravel is level, fairly smooth and easy enough for pushing a wheel chair or stroller or allowing a toddler to pedal. There’s both sun and shade here, and several wooden bridges over various arms of the singing creek.

This little park is an oasis, hidden away behind huge cable spools and satellite dishes on one side of its entrance and hundreds of expensive gleaming cars on the other.  Just a hundred metres away, busy Enterprise Road moves as much traffic over its smooth pavement as the creek slides water over its rocky green bed.

When you’re in the area, take advantage now and then of this modest and hidden gift.  Leave the pavement to visit the creek.