Lake Chelan to Osoyoos (BC)

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Today was a travel day through some pretty amazing territory. It wasn't what we expected at all. In effect it is all desert apart from the valleys which are all irrigated. Outside of the irrigated areas are rocks, gravel, tussock, low scrub and the wide river of the Okanogan River dammed in places along the way. The colours were unrelenting grey and brown with green to liven it up along the river terraces. It was like driving through a very big Waitaki River valley like we have in the South Island. It was Central Otago and Marlborough rolled into one except for the vastness. We drove over 250km and nearly the whole way was apples, pears, stone fruit, cherry orchards and vineyards. Can you imagine the size of the production? Along the valleys were huge packing and chilling stores to load fruit onto the adjacent railroad. Without checking, it would appear to be the fruit bowl of Washington State,

Since much of the area is not useable, it is locked up into State Park or Indian Reserve. It is great for geology though as nothing is covered up. The hills bordering the valleys are solid rock with stepped gravel terraces coming off them down to the river. You can pick out the various rock types easily with dykes often running through the granites or limestone. On the tops and hillsides you can pick out erratics that have been dropped out of the glaciers along the way some of which are huge.

We have a small problem with the car. The rubber sealing around the window keeping coming loose so we now have a long strip of sticking plaster holding it down until we find another Thrifty Rental outlet - a good Kiwi fixup!

The Canadian Border station was the opposite of the one the other day. We were through in a few minutes without any of the surliness we had had before. Osoyoos is just over the border and was to be our stopover point. We parked and had a wander through the town and some lunch. Osoyoos sits at the top end of the lake with most of the area around the town being developed for holidays. It is warm, sheltered, has many holiday condos and the lake nearby to swim in or sunbath by. It's a nice setting.

One thing which stood out for us was the number of people, particularly women wearing shorts. Every age, shape and size were wearing shorts and sandals. Apart from seeing this at home, I haven't encountered this before outside of NZ. We felt right at home.

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Photos

Little Episcopalian Church constructed of logs
This was an unusual construction of logs. No doubt there are others

Along the Okanogan Valley
Note the gravel terraces, large erratic rocks on the tops and the lack of any vegetation. Just needs water.