I have already written about the Trinity River Trail, Twelve Hills Nature Trail and Coombs Creek Trail. But GOAT ISLAND PRESERVE?
We decided to take a drive and I’ll just tell you now: it is neither an island or have goats that we saw. A huge disappointment for my 5 year old : ). But there is wildlife. On the Goat Island Preserve group Facebook page, there are some FANTASTIC videos of wild animals, including deer, hogs and coyotes. If I would have seen these videos before we went, I probably wouldn’t have gone, but we didn’t encounter anything crazier than a dead armadillo on the trail.
You do feel pretty remote and it was nice to be on something other than a paved path.
Before heading out, I couldn’t find a great trail map, so I stuck to the main trail, which is more of a gravel road. When entering the trail, a father and daughter duo gave me a tip: When you come to a fork in the trail, stay to the left, which leads you to the Trinity River.
There are lots of trails for cyclists, but we never saw any cyclists on the trail. The off-shoot trails seem very well marked, but because we had never been there, I was a little hesitant to try any. In the parking lot on the way out, a cyclist I told me Goat Island is a popular destination for bird watchers, but they have all but given up on this area because there is more foot traffic than ever before. So when you go out to explore, consider keeping quiet as other visitors are looking for bird habitats.
While we did walk 2.7 miles, which was a big ask for my 5 year old, there are other options. As you first enter, there is a trail called Horned Frogs, which takes you off the main trail, but returns you back a little bit later. Then if you walk a little further down the main trail, there is a trail marked with a cone that will give you a little peak at the Trinity River.
Length: We walked 2.7 miles round trip, google map, trail map.
