Location: On Highway 19, you head to the Cook Creek Intersection just south of Fanny Bay. Head east on Cook Creek road towards Highway 19a (the scenic route). Once reaching Highway 19a, head north until you reach Berray Road. It’s just before the bridge. Head down Berray shortly coming across a sign for the Rosewall Park accompanied by a large round parking lot.
Trail: A beautiful adventure, constantly changing in scenery year round, ending in the magnificent yet calming and sensational nature wonderland that is known as Rosewall Creek Falls. The trail is around 7 km to there and back. Much of the trail is fairly easy to traverse. There are no big hills or scrambling across rock faces. Most of the trail is fairly flat until gaining a small amount of elevation at the end. For the entire trail, you are hiking beside the beautiful blue-green waters of Rosewall Creek. Further in will be a few areas with obstacles to crawl over or around and where the trail gets thin following the river bank. Here is where the trail steepens. From here there is also the choice of taking a steeper trail to the better viewpoints.
There are two ways to start your adventure towards the two large waterfalls just past the western boundary of the park. One way is to cross the small trestle east of the parking lot, the other by crossing the aforementioned bridge on Highway 19a. Explained here is the latter of the two ways mentioned.
Following the western most trail from the parking lot along the creek side, your goal is getting to the other side of the stream. Around 5 minutes up this trail, you will reach a pedestrian crossing on the east side of the bridge. Cross the bridge and follow the walkway back down towards the trail on the other side. Follow this trail underneath the Highway 19a and 19 bridges. Past here, all you need to know; stick alongside the stream, you have no chance of getting lost. Once you reach the park boundary sign, you’re almost there. The trail takes around 2 hours there and back at a fair pace. The creek is an inspiring place to explore. You’d be able to spend an entire day out here and not get bored.
Geology: Rosewall Creek has very interesting and diverse rock formations, this with ease of access, makes it a great place for both avid and beginner “rock hounders”. Picking within provincial park boundaries is prohibited, but the creek extends far beyond these boundaries and offers a diverse quantity of quartz and semi-precious stones all along its path. Please be respectful and only take small amounts or just experience them, leaving an abundance for future adventurers to come across.
The Trees: The park covers a protect a very photogenic ecosystem, especially in the fall when maple trees are orange and shedding their leaves. This park protects 56 hectares of Rosewall Creek and the surrounding mixed coniferous forest. Some notable trees in the forest are the Broad Leaf Maples, sporting the largest leaves of any maple, and the Western Hemlocks, with their droopy tops or small tight clusters of pinecones.
War Memorial: Ian Macdonald was a resident of Fanny Bay and lieutenant who served in the Canadian Scottish Regiment during World War II. He left from his home in Fanny Bay, unfortunately he never returned from France being laid to rest at the Canadian War Cemetary. He was killed in the fight brutal against the Nazi regime, 8 days after the allies stormed the French beaches of Normandy. Ian was just 24 years old.
In 1946 the Fanny Bay-Bowser Memorial Fund petitioned to have a park on Rosewall Creek park established in his honour. 10 years later, the park had been established. In the gravel lot is a memorial made for Lt. Ian MacDonald. The picnic area was constructed with contribution from the officers’ family.
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