Self-guided park visit
What it actually looks like
What the children do
The CRD publishes no booked or guided program at this park; it is a drop-in regional park open sunrise to sunset. The park is 1.80 hectares with an easy difficulty rating, and the listed activities are hiking, walking/running and wildflowers. Amenities listed are a parking lot and public transit. Directions given are: from Victoria, follow Fairfield Road, which turns into Beach Drive in Oak Bay Municipality, turn right on Denison Road, which leads to the park entrance on the right, roughly 10 minutes' driving time from downtown Victoria. By bus, BC Transit route 7 to Fairfield Road at Foul Bay Road leaves an approximately 1.5 kilometre walk to the park. A park map is published as a PDF. The CRD's Regional Parks Interpretive School Programs are delivered at Island View Beach, Elk/Beaver Lake, Francis/King and Witty's Lagoon; Gonzales Hill is not among them.
Walk up easy marked trails from the Denison Road parking lot to the rocky knolls, look out over the ocean and the city, look at the white domed observatory from outside, and in spring find wildflowers in the Garry oak meadows.
Good to know
A parking lot and a bus stop about 1.5 km away are the only access facilities listed; no washrooms, picnic area or rain shelter appear in the CRD's amenities for this park. There is nothing to book, and no cost is published either way.