Hope

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Hope. Billed as “A Day Trippers Paradise”. Our Highlights were Mud’s Internet Café, very cool, cheap internet, live music and good coffee. The Othello Tunnels. And something some of you may have come across before but we certainly haven’t, a “Smorgasbord”!!

Hope has been the setting for quite a few movies I won‘t bore you with the names. But clearly the most famous one (well in my eyes) was Rambo “First Blood” where Sylvester Stallone jumped from a Canyon wall to escape capture, cutting his shoulder open on the way down through the trees only to have the nerve to use a pine needle to sew the wound up right there and then….what a hero!! I’m sure some of you will remember?? Anyway, the Othello Tunnel Trail was not only where this scene was filmed but also show cased an historic engineering feat, the Kettle Valley Railroad.

Built from 1911 to 1916, Andrew McCulloch designed the railroad pass through the Coquihalla Canyon and not around it as many had advised. The pass was chiseled out by hand through solid granite and at one point scales a 300 meter gorge. When you’re standing there looking at the gorge and imagine seeing this from the perspective of the poor workmen who had to build it , you start to laugh. Absolute bonkers, but hey that canny Scotsman got the job done!! Sadly, by 1959 the pass was closed!! It proved to costly to maintain the line from constant rock falls and landslides. Still good effort and it makes a bloody good tourist attraction. It is said that the trains that used this section of the railroad were scheduled to only pass through the canyon at night for the benefit of not scaring the bejesus out of the passengers!! Brilliant!

We had a busy day planned and it was soon time to get on the road to our next stop, “Hell’s Gate.“ Impressive name. It’s got some impressive facts! It’s the deepest & narrowest point on the Fraser River (110 feet). Twice the volume of water passes through it per minute than that going over Niagara Falls (200 million gallons). The reality however is a little disappointing. The introduction of concrete fish ways to help Salmon up stream to spawn spoil the esthetics of the gorge and take away a natural view which you look for to match the impressive information, Still we got some nice fudge from the gift shop and by the time we got back into the car it was all about the next sightseeing stop.

Alexandra Suspension Bridge, named after Princess Alexandra of…….WALES (Who!), was built in 1863 to service the increased prospector traffic brought on by the Gold rush. It’s a very nice bridge as far as bridges go and we enjoyed the views. The walk down to it was good too. On the way back up we crossed the Canadian Pacific Railway line and were just in time to see a huge haulage train pass by. We even got a smile and a honk from the driver, which made us laugh and shout out “Get on Driveeeeeeeer” in our Devonian ascents. Quality!!

And that sealed off another great day. Or so we thought…..

After a busy day we ventured out on the town in search of a nice meal and a couple of beers. We stumbled across a Chinese. I can’t remember its name, but it’ll certainly be remembered for other reasons……… The first being the menu board outside advertising an “All you can eat Smorgasbord” What??? Smorgasbord!! We’ll have one of those!! The second was the pain I felt after taking the sign literally and nearly killing myself of chronic indigestion and a MSG overdose. Jo seemed to find my situation incredibly funny……she managed to stroke my hugely inflated belly though. Bless her. Still, in hindsight this didn’t take anything away from the delight of finding our new favourite word. SMORGASBORD!

The next day saw a slight change of plan. Instead of staying another night in Hope and doing a day trip to Harrison Hot Springs we decided to get some accommodation and stay the night there and shorten the drive to Vancouver in the morning.

On the way to Harrison I was kidknapped by a crazed green fingered English woman and taken against my will to Minter Gardens where I was tortured for nearly 3 hours. 32 acres, 11 themed gardens….it was a wonder to be hold. It was actually quite good. The Rose garden was our favourite, we particularly liked the scent given off by a rose called “Mystic Cloud”. It was lovely!! On entering the Gardens we were greeted by a kind looking women who asked us the customary “so where are you folks from?” Question. “England” we said. “I know that, but whereabouts” she said back a bit brashly….. Only turns out that this lady has a sister living in Torquay…….Well I never. Spent the next half hour seeing if we knew everyone she’d ever meet in Torquay…Margaret Merrivale? Tabitha Bingham?…ANYWAY, Small world!!

On arriving at our accommodation in Harrison we immediately realized we had booked into a dive!! Not bad considering it was the first one and we’d been away now for 4 weeks. After making sure there were no dead bodies under the bed we had a look around the town and had some lunch beside the lake. After lunch we went in search of the Hot Springs which put this place on the map. This proved pretty hard and it took us about an hour before we’d got the low down. It turns out that the hot springs are owned by Harrison Hot Springs Resort, a hotel complex. The actual source of the springs has been closed to the public due to an accident some years back where a young girl was scolded. The only way now to get a piece of the action is to either A. Stay in the Hotel Resort ($400/night EACH) where the hot spring water is pumped into a couple of nicely landscaped pools (the ones shown in all the brochures) or B. Go to the municipal pool for a swim, in what the locals call the ‘human soup’ !! I don’t know the things the brochures forget to tell you!! We opted for the latter and I am glad to say that we had a very pleasant and relaxing afternoon and it was not at all like what we had imagined….we put it down to scare tactics from disgruntled locals.

That evening we took a walk along the lake front to look at the sand sculptures which were dotted along the shore in their hundreds, all in aid of the World Championships. We also spotted some log cabins and wondered whether these were the one’s that Jo’s Mum & Dad had stayed in on their visit here some years ago?? We rounded off the evening with one mother of an ice-cream and went back to pack and reflect on our stay in Canada.

Looking back on our stay in Canada it was a really enjoyable experience. Not what we’d call a relaxing holiday. It was, at times pretty hard work (I’d challenge anyone to do the Grouse Grind with a smile on their face) but the rewards were fantastic. The views of the glaciers across Garibaldi Lake and the peak chair ride up Whistler mountain for instance or the waterfalls we saw in and around Jasper , just amazing. It was also nice to have a chat and a giggle with Dan and Rachel who we met at the Fireside Lodge in Whistler. They were busy getting jobs to help keep them going for a few more months before returning home to Melbourne, top quality people. Oh and the Swiss couple nick named Hans and Heidi by Jo, who we kept on bumping into along the way. But for both of us I think one of the weird things about our stay was the welcoming feeling you got when you entered the Rockies, a feeling I’m sure we’d feel again if we ever came back. Anyway, enough weirdness. If we had to pick one moment or our best moment while in Canada it would have to be the free willy experience, just how those giant whales get right out of the water like that,…well it was just a magnificent thing to see.

And that was it for Canada on the Benny & Joey world tour 2006/2007 : (

Onto the US of A and the tricky job of crossing the boarder…just remember ‘no liquids’ and leave your personality at the door!!

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Comments

[Riley]

Love your Blog
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