If it's both "strange and familiar," then it's also both warm and cold. Also, it's both highly and ornately decorated in a Victorian style, with lots of fringed throws on ornately carved tables and starkly Scandinavian. The pictures on the wall are both highly detailed landscapes and domestic scenes in richly carved frames and stark color blocks in plain metal frames.
The forest is "thin" in the sense that there is not a lot of undergrowth, but the trees are plentiful, thick, and tall. Subsequently, there is a constant interplay of dark and light at various points in the trail.
The trail is mainly easily navigated, wide and well traveled, yet it offers several side trails which are themselves less well marked. While I take many of those, I find few of them lead to anything remarkable (perhaps that's why they're not as beaten down), but some of them lead to truly remarkable places to be observed or allow glimpses of animals or vegetation that I might not have seen otherwise.
It is a natural, flowing body of water. At the point where I encounter it, its banks have narrowed and it's grown more shallow, so while upstream from me, it's rather smooth and calm, where I have encountered it, it's beginning to flow rapidly, and its surface is a bit disturbed. There is a very pleasant sound of rushing water.
It's a tin ladle-type affair with a handle, like that left beside wells in past times.
The key is a rather modern, non-descript key, which has markings on it which suggest it was originally issued by an institution. It's color is brass, and it has "Do Not Copy" engraved on it, along with a series of numbers intended to help someone trace it. Since it probably unlocks a lock the core of which has been discarded, I leave it.