Lake Temescal

I'm always looking for somewhere new to go walking by myself and with my dogs. Recently a neighbor asked me if I had been to Lake Temescal, I had never heard of it, he said it was a short walk from our house and really beautiful. I said I would check it out, then completely forgot about it. 

Then earlier this week someone else mentioned it, so I went on to google maps and decided to check it out, and it was only 0.8 miles from mu house, so i set off with the dogs, it was a gorgeous afternoon, sunny but not too warm.

We took a short cut which involved walking down a set of 43 very very steep steps, and it was a gradual incline up to the lake. Coming home we went the longer way to avoid climbing the steep steps!

We chose to walk on the dirt track side of the road as it was more in the shade then the footpath, I did notice a lot of broken car glass on the road :( , so I imagine it is a popular place for car break ins if you park on the street. As there is a $5 (I think) fee to park in the parking lot if the kiosk is manned. I didn't see any cars on the street, but it was a weekday and the parking lot kiosk wasn't manned, but I imagine it gets crazy at weekends.

It took 23 mins to walk there, but that is with two dogs who stop to sniff everything and I mean everything!!

The view of the lake is amazing, it's hard to believe you are right next to the freeway and so close to my house and I didn't know it was here, it was so peaceful and calm (once you blocked out the freeway traffic). It was quite busy that afternoon with a few school running groups, and we met lots of people walking their dogs, even a few westies :)

There is even a beach at the lake, although there is a small entrance fee if you want to swim. The lake was really clean and the water was clear, but personally I wouldn't fancy swimming in it with all the fish and the ducks! This clearly doesn't put people off as I saw a few people swimming whilst I was there.

One side of the lake is completely paved and the other side is dirt track. This is the view from the opposite side of the lake from the beach. It is pretty much flat all the way round. The dogs loved their walk there and we will definitely be making this a regular walking location.