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Published: August 13th 2010
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Well we made it to Idaho (and there was no sign of Keanu Reeves, before any of you ask...)
We stayed in the town of Bonners Ferry (
where, we discovered, they sell surprisingly cheap liquor!). We crossed back into Canada last Wednesday, and headed up via Creston to Kootenay Lake. We spent a very pleasant couple of hours at Lockhart Beach, lying in the blazing sunshine, before heading north again to Kootenay Bay to catch the car ferry across to Balfour. The 45 minute crossing apparently makes this journey the longest
FREE car ferry journey in the world (for those of you who are interested in that sort of thing). I’m sure that you can imaging Craig’s conflict: on the one hand it was FREE, but on the other it involved getting on a boat and travelling across water. But, rest assured, the fact that it was FREE won the day (as you all knew it would!)
We checked into the Kokanee Creek Provincial Park on the shores of Kootenay Lake. Now there was a sign in the Visitors Centre there saying that the (Kokanee) salmon were due to arrive on 12th August. How do they know these things?
Do Salmon have calendars? Do they carry blackberries? Answers on a postcard please.
Anyway, we headed south west to Nelson for a browse around the town, and then drove to Trail and Rossland, before crossing back to Castlegar (a bit of a circular route, but the road between Rossland & Castlegar is pretty spectacular). Then north again, up to the town of Nakusp, where we considered visiting our fourth set of hot springs. But the fact that it was 12km out of town, and up a dirt track put us off that idea. So instead we had another laze on the beach, until the rain forced us to give that up as a bad job.
Heading south again we caught another
FREE ferry (
only five minutes this time: but (apparently) you’ve got to get your money's worth...!) for a long old trek across the mountains to the town of Vernon. Another laze on the beach (Kalamalka Lake this time) before heading to the Kekuli Bay Provincial Park - for some great views across Kalamalka Lake, and some very friendly marmots (oh, and warnings in the campground to watch out for Rattlesnakes! We didn’t see any.)
We drove
south from Vernon to Kelowna, planning to stop at Bear Creek Provincial Park (on the west bank of Okanagan Lake, opposite the town), but even at 10:00 in the morning, the place was full. Possibly something to do with it being peak tourist season in one of the main holiday areas in Canada...) So we tried (but failed) to do a walk along the (disused) Kettle Valley Railway - mainly because the road to get there might just about be passable by a mountain goat that’s had its three shredded wheat, but certainly not by a 24ft long motorhome. If only they put that kind of information in the guidebooks...
So we drove further south to Penticton, only to find that every campsite we tried to check into was either full, or charging almost twice what we have paid everywhere else in Canada. We eventually found a place to stay in Okanagan Falls as night was beginning to fall (this one only about 60% more expensive that other places!). So we had a rethink of our plan to spend nearly a week in the Okanagan Valley and decided to leave it for another time. Instead we headed west again,
towards the E.C.Manning Provincial Park. Lovely place. Two nights in the campground there. On a dull and overcast Tuesday, we walked all the way round Lightening Lake, up to Flash Lake and back (bit of a storm theme going on with the lake names in these parts). And on a gloriously sunny Wednesday we did a 16km trek up to Poland Lake and back. And on the way back to the campground we saw our first bear for about four weeks. In fact we saw not only a bear, but her two cubs too.
Anyway, today we said goodbye to Manning Park (after doing a couple of quick nature walks and driving to the top of Cascade Lookout) and headed west to the charming little town of Hope. Coincidentally, the Kettle Valley Railway also came through Hope on its way from Kelowna to Vancouver, so we FINALLY got to walk along the trail - through the Othello Tunnels above the Coquihalla Canyon, which were dug in the 1800s.
So, tomorrow we are planning to head north again, up towards Cache Creek, before making a final turn southwest on a two and a half-week long trip back to Vancouver.
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Isla
non-member comment
No postcard sorry, but...
I'm not thinking those little fishes have blackberries, and as you'd expect from any self-respecting meteorologist, I did look up the salmon food chain. Given that many salmon are full of mercury.... maybe they have been eating the batteries. Mmmm, or do blackberries have Lithium batteries..mmmm must explore more. I clearly have WAY too much time on my hands. Maybe they are just in tune with the sun/moon cycles. Glad you're both still having fun :-) Isla