Day 3: 2015-04-20 San Leandro - Oakland

Started the day from San Leandro Marina, heading north. The Neptune Dr walk was short leading to the entrance of Oyster Bay Regional Shoreline. A fairly small park, this provides great views of air planes landing at Oakland airport. Little more than 2 miles into the walk, I crossed over Bill Lockyer bridge to Oakland. 

This portion of the bay trail runs right by the new BART route to Oakland airport. For the next mile or so, the Metropolitan Golf Links is on the right, BART tracks on the left and OAK airport behind. After a short walk on Doolittle Dr, I was at the Martin Luther King Jr Regional Shoreline. 

I took the Arrowhead marsh trail into the park and after walking another mile or so, crossed San Leandro creek and entered Garretson Point trail. This trail hugs the San Leandro Bay and provides great views of Alameda Island and Bay Farm Island where Oakland airport is located. 

I crossed East Creek slough some 7 miles into the walk and was in a portion that was very industrial. The sad part was that the bay looked very dirty here and there was also lots of trash on the trail. Shortly, the trail ended at Tidewater Boating Center. There is an East Bay Regional Park District office here - I had a great conversation with the very friendly employees in the center.

Originally, I had planned to cover both Alameda and Bay Farm Islands in my walk. I decided to save the Bay Farm loop for another day. From this point, there were several times I had to switch back and forth between the trail & city roads. Sometimes, the bay trail itself was on the roads. A very urban setting marked rest of the walk for the day.

I crossed over into Alameda from the High St bridge and continued on Fernside Blvd to the south eastern tip of the island. The walk through the residential area was quite nice. Alameda is quaint little town - I even found a "Little Free Library" in one of the side streets... it had books in it!

I enjoyed a 2 mile walk by the shoreline - a portion of it was undeveloped and I chanced upon a sculpture that was brilliant - depicting friendship between a dog and boy! The developed portion of Shoreline Dr also had Alameda touches to it - with very nicely marked bike and pedestrian ways.

I turned right on Grand St, walked through some more residential portion of the town, then turned right on Central Ave. The tree lining on this street was uniform and beautiful. I did a little research and was further impressed by the planning Alameda has done to plant uniform trees (London Planetrees in Central Ave) in multiple streets. Kudos, Alameda!

I was back in Oakland, this time crossing over at Tilden Way bridge. My goal was to stay as close to the bay front as possible, if necessary, going over to Embarcadero Rd until Jack London Square. The 3.5 mile walk was marked by several areas of construction, abandoned ferry terminal building, new construction zones as well as some nice segments by the bay. The area crossing over into the Coast Guard island was especially nice with that interesting "Sigame/Follow me" sculpture in Union Point Park.

With about 65 miles of walking done in three days, I have decided to take couple of days break to rest my feet and heal those blisters. After a brief rest at Jack London Square, I headed, by foot (!) to 12th Street BART station. 

Key Stats from Day 3

• Distance covered: 20 miles
• Elapsed time: 8 hours 20 minutes
• Breaks: About 60 minutes
• Cities: San Leandro, Alameda, Oakland
• Dog friendly segments: Oyster Bay Regional Shoreline, Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline, Shoreline Dr (Alameda)
• Birds observed: Brown Pelican, Great Egret, Snowy Egret, California Gull, Domestic Geese

Pictures (70+) from the hike today. Complete map of the 7 day walkabout.