Blackberry Adventure

On a beautiful sunny day, pretend pails and gloves were packed into Joey, who took two adventurous types into the wilderness for blackberry picking.

No, destination was not a farm. It was the wilderness of Iona Island regional park.  

 A hidden natural gem between the airport and sewage treatment, the island is packed with blackberries.

Right North of the parking is a barricade. To the right of that, two ponds.

Unlike ducks in city parks, those duckies are not used to civilization and they ran away at the first sight of humans.

But ignore the ducks for now; we have to find the blackberries.

In between the two ponds you start seeing bushes and bushes of blackberries.

Blackberries, though, protect themselves well with their thorns. Wear thick jeans, boots and gloves and get into the bushes.

The blackberries are abundant. The picking is fun. 

The animals, snakes or zombies hiding within remained hiding. Even though hornets are supposed to be the real threat.

 

Hidden between all were a couple of blackberry bushes with different kind of leaves.

Maybe the original indigenous species, those berries are three times sweeter than the mass ones, even when not completely ripe. 

And the discoveries are not limited to the blackberries.

Those beautiful wild flowers were in season and popping up everywhere. More naturally fascinating was this green coloured bee on the flower; something I have never seen before.

Less than two hours of roaming the bushes generated a lot of blackberries. What to do with them (other than eat as many fresh as one can along the way)? Tune back next week and read about it.