The plan was to pick up our RV from Canadream in Whitehorse and then drive down to Vancouver, taking in the beautiful scenery along the way with only a rough idea of the route we would take and definitely nothing set in stone except for our final destination!
Day 1 (distance travelled 270km, 270km)
As we pulled up at the RV lot ours was there sitting outside, glistening and waiting ready to be driven. What was to be our very “own” Ford E450 “Super Duty” for the next 17 days looked big and mighty impressive! After signing various waivers the manager then took us outside to show us how to operate all of the various gizmos. As we were being shown around the outside of the vehicle he had to explain which of the many keys opened which of the many locks. I immediately thought it strange that everything seemed to be very secure except for the fuel tank, which had no lock! Even more strange though was that the door to the “sanitary outlet connection” did come with its own key! To me if someone really wanted to steal the contents behind that door they were welcome to it! For the rest of the trip this idea did at least make me smile each time I undertook the rather unpleasant daily ritual of emptying its contents at the “sani-dump” while wearing my rubber gloves!
After a long visit to the Real Canadian Superstore we were ready to hit the Alaska Highway going Southbound. We had a full tank of petrol, a well stocked fridge, chewing gum and yes we were wearing sunglasses!
Day 2 (distance travelled 380km, 650km)
As we weaved the border between the Yukon and British Columbia we arrived at a town called Watson Lake. It is termed the “Gateway to the Yukon” and as Yukon’s 3rd largest town has a population of an incredible 1,500!! It is hard to imagine that the vast wilderness that the Yukon is, covering an area similar in size to Spain, only has a total population of around 32,000! Of these around 26,000 live in the capital, Whitehorse, leaving just 6,000 spread across the rest! Watson Lake had a nice feel to the place, and the world famous “Signpost Forest” next to the Visitor Centre has to be seen to be believed! There is row upon row of posts upon which visitors through the years have placed their own signs. You could spend hours reading each of the 70,000+ signs! There are ones which have quickly been made up on the day or actual stolen road signs! Strangely I noticed how many of these were from Germany (the photo below shows one from Mannheim). Trust them to be so organised as to remember to bring a sign with them stolen in advance from their local town, when going on holiday! Some were so big that I wondered if they still had room for clothes in their suitcases!
Later that day we arrived at the Provincial Campground called “Laird Hotsprings”. We had heard during the river trip that they had amazing natural hotsprings. This place certainly didn’t disappoint and was my first visit to anything like this, and it wasn’t very busy. These particular hotsprings are not well publicised and don’t appear in the tourist brochures, so haven’t been commercialised the same way that the famous ones at Radium have.
Svan up to her neck in hot water (as usual!)
Day 3 (distance travelled 545km, 1195km)
What better way to start the day than a pre-breakfast 10 minute walk to the hotsprings to warm up for the day ahead! Arriving at 7.30am meant we had the whole place to ourselves which made it even more special, we both loved this place!
Between Watson Lake and Laird we saw saw much wildlife. Herds of bison and black bears appeared at regular intervals along the side of the highway. It was starting to feel like we were on safari! The photo below shows one of the male bison we saw "hitch-hiking" along the side of the road....needless to say we didn't offer him a lift....
We planned to cover lots of ground that day so we made a quick getaway after breakfast. En route we stopped at a place called Bayo Lake where we did a little 4km walk in the sunshine at this pretty spot.
We drove on and on through the day covering an amazing 545km with great views of mountains and lakes along the way, particularly in Stikine Park, and Dease Lake seem to carry on forever! We eventually arrived at a nice RV site called “Mountain Shadow” at Iskut down Highway 37, where thanks to the long days we were still able to set up before dark. When we arrived, the owner asked us what size of site we would need for our RV. We advised him that our RV was pretty big so we would need one of his larger sites. He looked out of the window and checked out what we were driving, and then gave us a knowing smile. In the nicest possible way he suggested that the smallest of his sites would be fine for our 24’ RV, and that he had sites which could accommodate units up to 45’! Hmmmmmm, maybe we weren’t as big as we thought!!
(Yes that us on the left!)
Day 4 (distance travelled 315km, 1510km)
We decided that we would head towards the Canada/US border to two neighbouring towns called Stewart and Hyder. This was partly just so that we could say that we had visited Alaska during the trip, but also because Highway 37A had the reputation for being a stunning stretch of road! As we drove down we started to appreciate why. The amazing “Bear” Glacier comes down the side of the mountain and runs into a lake right opposite the highway, neither of us had ever seen anything like that before! Then further down as well as the mountains, glacier, trees and river running alongside the road there then appeared multiple waterfalls all running down in groups of 2s and 3s. It truly was amazing – this 60km stretch of road is without a doubt the prettiest I have ever driven, and that includes the Icefields Parkway on the way to Jasper!
Svan in front of "Bear" Glacier
The thing that really caught our imagination was the chance to see bears fishing for salmon at the creek in Hyder. There were no guarantees however as this was the real thing, not something staged in a Zoo! The centre warned us that the road up to the viewing platform in Hyder was an old mining road which is not maintained, and therefore not suitable for RV’s! She suggested we visit the local pub in Hyder and find someone to take us up there!
As we crossed the unmanned border we drove straight into “downtown” Hyder and easily found the one bar in town. We went into the “Sealaska” and ordered a pint of the “Alaska White” and asked the barmaid if she knew anyone who would drive us. First she went over to a guy who said he couldn’t do it today. This guy turned out to be her Uncle. Then she went over to another guy and he also said that he had other business on, just as he started another beer! That turned out to be her brother. Next was an older woman. We saw them chatting and after a few moments she came back and said that her mother would take us! We went over and introduced ourselves to Annie who was going to be our newly appointed guide for the day. After we had all finished our drinks we hopped into her car and then started the bumpy 6-7km journey on the potholed mining road up to the “Fish Creek Wildlife Site”. We were very glad we hadn’t taken the RV!
When we walked out onto the viewing platform at 7pm it was clear that most of the people there had already been waiting a long time, including a number of professional photographers, many of whom by this stage were sporting long beards! We could see the salmon swimming slowly in the shallow waters mating and spawning their eggs before dying themselves. Those that had already died were easy pickings for the seagulls. We joined the others and hoped that a bear would turn up before dark. Certainly dinner would not prove difficult to find if they did come!
By 8pm a number of people had already packed up and gone home. Some said they had waited up to 6 hours! Then just as I went over to start reading one of the bear information boards I heard a few whispers from those from the upstream end of the deck and then heard some splashing in the river. From behind a corner a huge black grizzly then walked into full view! Everyone rushed for a better view clutching their cameras.
Over the next 30 minutes we watched what I was told was an 800lb Grizzly catch five salmon. He ate only eat 3 of them, discarding the other 2 as apparently not appetising enough! It was an amazing experience and truly one I will never forget, seeing a true wonder of Mother Nature! Our bear had the most amazing glossy black coat – clearly the fish diet was good for him! We certainly felt very lucky to have only waited for one hour to see this incredible sight, when many have travelled further and waited longer to leave seeing nothing but the salmon!
Video footage of "Mr Bear" in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGuuWN2OKP8
At the end of an an incredible day with the light fading we crossed back over into Canada to stay at the Rainy Creek Municipal Campground. We left behind the strange small town folk of Hyder and their bears.
I later found out that this town of just 100 people had been the scene of John Carpenter’s movie “The Thing”…perhaps it was a good thing we hadn’t stayed longer…
Day 5 (distance travelled 400km, 1910km)
Just to prove that we could do “culture” on this trip, on our way to Smithers we stopped at Hazelton, apparently "world" famous as the “Totem Pole Capital of the World”!
After travelling so far, and often being the only car on the road, when we arrived in Smithers, with its population of around 6,000, it felt like the centre of the world. However, upon closer inspection at the Visitor Centre this proved not to be the case! We were not overly inspired, especially with the lack of bike hire options so we carried on, through a town called Houston, which also tried to badge itself as a centre for outdoor pursuits. However yet again what use are great mountain bike trails when you can’t get hold of a bike?? A clear pattern was starting to emerge...
That night, just outside of Houston, we stayed at the Shady Rest RV Camp. This was a pretty spot with views of the mountains. The site was also full of flowers in full bloom. It is funny the things that you start to gauge campgrounds by and certainly shower and washroom facilities were high on our list. The one’s at this site were new and immaculately maintained by the owner, so much so that you almost felt guilty about getting the floor wet! These showers went on to be the standard by which all others were judged, and whilst our RV did have such facilities built in they would prove challenging to use by anyone other than small children! Maybe that was the reason why those big Americans needed their huge RV's...
Day 6 (distance travelled 325km, 2235km)
The target for this day was to reach the geographical midpoint of our journey, a place called Prince George, which badges itself as the "Northern Capital of BC". To get there we would first arrive at a place called Burns Lake where, as usual, we headed straight to the Visitor Centre. The lady there was oddly funny. We were initially excited to hear that Burns Lake had lots of brand new mountain bike trails suitable for all levels. We then highlighted that we did not have any bikes with us so then asked, as usual, if there were any available for hire. Yet again, the response was that there were not any shops offering this service. Unperturbed though she still wanted to tell us all about the great trails that we would not be able to do. When we cut her short she became rather deflated and then struggled on trying to convince us why we should do a little 2km "hike" around the local lake instead. Uninspired we once again moved on and headed for our end destination for the day where we had heard that they had a Gold’s Gym! It’s sad the things that you look forward to when you spend so many hours on the road!
After parking the RV in their parking lot and warming up we got some funny looks from the locals when we proceeded to do a CrossFit style workout in the middle of the gym! We felt better for it though and then headed late in the day to an RV park called the Log Cabin, whose facilities were at the other end of the washroom scale!
Day 7 (distance travelled 0km, 2235km)
Having completed 2235km in the previous 6 days, and even though we had enjoyed a couple of truly unforgettable events in respect of the Grizzly fishing and the Hotsprings at Laird, we were started to feel a little jaded by driving for around 5-6 hours each day. We both felt that we needed to get out and enjoy more things outside of the RV. Enjoying views from the RV is great but you also need to breath in the air and feel the ground under your feet. We needed to break the cycle with a day off from what was starting to feel like a race to Vancouver in the fastest possible time!
Hiking and mountain biking in the immediate Prince George area was limited, so we felt that blowing the cobwebs away in the gym again would be a good compromise before trying to find some good hiking on the way out of town the next day.
Our day off from driving turned into another tough CrossFit workout at Gold’s, plus some food shopping and then a chilled evening at the appropriately named “Bee Lazee” RV site on Highway 97 south of town.
Day 8 (distance travelled 295km, 2530km)
This day saw us get back on the road, Highway 16 (Trans Canada Highway North) toward Kamloops.
The Visitor Centre at Prince George, after much interrogation, had finally given in and pointed us in the direction of a great hike, one that I had actually spotted on the front of one of their very own brochures! The photo of the waterfall in the hike had looked stunning! It was called the “Ancient Forest” trail, and whilst this only took up to around 90 minutes, the trailhead for the “Driscoll Ridge Trail” could also be added to make it a more substantial hike! The brochure also went on to explain that the forest is the furthest inland rainforest in the world, and it gets its name as “ancient” due to the fact that as the forest is not affected by fire or disease the trees only die there through old age. Many of the cedars are at least 1000 years old and some even older than 2000 years, although it seems that even the experts cannot date them exactly!
Cedar trees in the Ancient Forest
When we arrived at the start of the trail the warden chatted to us and explained that our understanding of the “Ancient Forest” trail was correct, but that the “Discoll” would actually take 8 hours to do on its own, in full. Funnily (and without prompting) he highlighted that a German couple had done it in 6.5 hours the week before, which he found remarkable! It does occur to me that when hiking I do most probably slow Svan down. When I say she is like a “mountain goat” I do mean it in the nicest possible way! ;)
As we started the Ancient Forest, we could immediately see why this trail had been described as “easy” in the brochure when we saw a lady bringing a stroller back down the trail! Nevertheless initial impressions were good. We made our way towards the famous waterfalls and en route saw some of the many amazing trees. They towered above us and were huge in diameter. Each seemed to have its own personality, and some even had their own names, eg “Treebeard” being the most famous, whose branches you can see have turned upward as if reaching for the sunlight. Neither of us had ever seen a “rainforest” before and it struck us that this was a great way to see our first without having to travel to deepest South America and venture into areas with extreme humidity and the risk of tropical diseases and the like. Here it was cool, damp underfoot and we were lucky to be there on a sunny day with the sun's rays breaking through the canopy. The unique damp and wet environment here is caused by the mountains trapping clouds in the skies above.
After seeing the beautiful waterfall we carried on to the Driscoll Trail, and based on the advice of the warden, had decided to just hike to the summit and then back down. This, he advised, would take us around 2 hours each way in addition to the time spent on the “Ancient Forest”.
We appreciated how incredibly well marked both trails were as we were the only people attempting the Driscoll that day. It felt like we had that part of the forest all to ourselves. As we went further up we started to understand why this trail had been marked as “difficult”. The trail was very muddy and had many streams which had to be negotiated by crossing slippery logs. This was certainly a challenge and as we slipped and slided our way up the trail, with our socks and shoes having been dipped into the water and mud on more than one occasion we had a bet as to who would be the first to fall fully into the mud!
When previous hikes had been described as an estimated number of hours Svan and I always felt good that we could do them faster than the estimate. This however was not one of those occasions! The way up took the full 2 hours and by the time we stopped for a late lunch it was 3pm, we were both feeling pretty hungry!
View from the top of Driscoll Ridge
Day 9 (distance travelled 260km, 2790km)
The day of not 1, not 2, not even 3 but 4 - 4 Beautiful Waterfalls!
After leaving Valemount that morning we arrived at the Visitor Centre at Clearwater, the entrance to Wells Gray Provincial Park, at lunchtime. There they advised that if we were just “passing through” that we had to check out their waterfalls, including Helmcken, where the Murtle River free-falls 141m to the plunge pool below. That is further than Niagara Falls, and is considered to be one of Canada’s most stunning!
Post lunch we went waterfall hunting….
The first, Spahats Falls, was located just 10 minutes from the first car parking area, easy enough for the visiting Japanese tourists to get to in their designer shoes. From the viewpoint it was certainly an impressive start, and yet we knew that better was still to come…
Next came Moul Falls. Here there was a short hike of 2.5km to get to the bottom of the falls. It was well worth the walk! I had never been so close to such a large waterfall, and although they don’t recommend it, you are able to walk behind the falls. This I had to do, just to re-enact the scene from Last Of The Mohicans! I told Svan to “stay alive no matter what occurred” as I went intrepidly into the falls….
Getting to the caves behind the falls was an amazing thing that I will always remember, and luckily I had my waterproofs on! I don’t seem to remember them wearing them in the movie though, hmmmmm!
Yes that's me standing behind the falls!
Third was the big one! Helmcken Falls was truly magnificent, and if the height of the falls were not enough the colours of the rocks that had been cut away by the water over thousands of years were also amazing!
Finally and with the evening drawing in fast, we thought we would chance our luck again at dodging the rain to see the final of the four. Dawson, although wide, did not have anywhere near as impressive a drop as the others, so we took a quick couple of photos and dashed back to the RV. As we ran back the heavens opened and no matter how fast we ran (Svan with umbrella in hand) we got soaked. It did seem a little odd that we were running from the water then, whereas earlier in the day I had deliberately run into it...
Seeing all of these waterfalls reminded me of our trip on the “Maid of the Mist”, the boat that takes you up close, but not directly under, Niagara Falls, which we had seen back in 2009! That too was a great experience, but sadly so commercialised. I remember looking behind Niagara and all you can see were literally dozens of big ugly hotels and casinos with bright neon signs all vying for own “special” prime views! These falls in Wells Gray Park seem so untouched by comparison, which made being there even more special. This really became apparent as we had the whole of the viewing area at Dawson to ourselves late on in the day!
It had been great afternoon, and so we headed to our RV park – Wells Gray Golf and RV park, to park up and have dinner as night drew in.
Day 10 (distance travelled 280km, 3070km)
After driving to the Visitor Centre at Kamloops we decided to head toward the only bike hire shop in town in the hope that we would be able to do a half day hire and do some exploring on what was a glorious day! On arrival at the shop they made it clear that they wouldn’t “cut us a deal” on a couple of their bikes for a couple of hours! Plan B was to go for a 10k run along the “Rivers Trail”. The run was ok, but the trail actually went through some residential areas that weren’t that pretty. The river had many sand banks, so on spotting one of the larger ones I dared Svan to take off her shoes and run on the sand bank with me! She called my bluff and although we didn’t run on it we walked barefoot along the sandbank in the bright sunshine before resuming our run and doing some stretching in the park near to the RV.
We then went off in search of an RV camp. A place called “Chase” was the first destination we hit but the camp looked small and cramped so we carried on to Sorrento. I had to double take when I saw the name on the map as I had stayed at the Italian resort of the same name on the Amalfi Coast a few years before!
Whilst looking for one RV camp we stumbled across another. They had spaces left and as the light was fading fast we went in. “The Blind Bay Resort” was situated right on Lake Shuswap and was clearly popular with those who liked to spend time on the water. However, the campsite itself was surreal. It was more like a very congested RV "town". After we had been given our designated spot by street name and number, we then saw the sheer number of RV’s that had been crammed in to what seemed like a very small area! Still we parked up, had dinner and went to bed knowing that we would not be staying long!
Day 11 (distance travelled 130km, 3200km)
In one of the many tourist brochures we had looked at I had spotted the word “epic” next to a mountain biking trail called the “Larch Hills Traverse” and had been advised that there was a good bike hire shop in town! This all sounded too good to be true....were the mountain biking gods finally smiling down upon us?
Unfortunately not! The bike hire shop, in a place called Salmon Arm, which was about 30 minutes from the hill would only hire us bikes for use around the “trails” in town as they didn’t have the twin suspension bikes needed for the trail. This didn’t really appeal. With everything that we had seen and done on our trip we were starting to feel spoiled and things had to be of “epic” proportion for us to feel inclined to do them, “nice to do” just didn’t cut it anymore!
So we passed on Salmon Arm, and carried on further down the highway to a place called “Wood Lake” near Vernon where we understood there was a cool winery by the name of Grey Monk which did tours and wine tasting. This was definitely something we hadn’t done on the trip to date and really appealed. The tour was very good and informative, although disappointing insofar as we weren’t actually taken out to see the vines. Their wine adviser, by the name of Brian, explained that where the slopes are steep they have seen many ladies wearing high heels actually fall over so they had decided not to include this as a part of the tour. It was also a shame that where the harvest was running 2-3 weeks late this year we wouldn’t actually see them working any of the grapes in their machinery! Still we left with a bottle of chilled white Reisling to drink that night. The winery actually specialises in German grape varieties as the owners originated from there and the winery itself brands a number of its wines as “Latitude 50” which is the same as the wine growing region of Germany.
Outside of Grey Monk Winery
We enjoyed our wine with locally bought sweetcorn and some sausages all cooked on the camp fire on that Saturday night of the long weekend at Wood Lake Resort and RV camp. Sadly though, much like the camp before, the RV’s had been crammed in so tightly they seemed to lack privac. The noise from neighbouring children and dogs didn't help either. We started to realise just how lucky we had been with the spacious camps we had taken for granted earlier in the trip.
Day 12 (distance travelled 30km, 3230km)
After completing the easy kilometres from Wood Lake into Kelowna, as usual we headed straight to the Visitor Centre to find out what were the “must do” things and which RV parks they would recommend which would still have availability on this public holiday weekend.
The Visitor Centre was one of the best we had come across, as was their main brochure. They highly recommended a unique mountain bike experience at a place called Myra Canyon just out of town. There were also two other spots they suggested would be good for us to visit that afternoon which would give us a good feel for the town. This time they could also deliver on mountain bike hire at a place called “SportsRent”. They also found us a nice, if expensive, RV site not far from Okanagan Lake. Bear in mind that when we started out we were finding RV camps for $28-30 per night, this one, called “Hiawatha”, which offered no better facilities, was going to charge us $65 per night!
After checking in we went and got our hands on some city bikes from a very nice guy called Mark, then went exploring firstly to Knox Hill with views over the city and lake and then down to Mission Creek Trail. It was great to get out on the bikes, the sun was hot, and we enjoyed the feel of the city. It seemed to have something of the Mediterranean about it with the water, climate (hot but not humid), orchards, terracotta buildings, the rather barren almost desert like surrounding (due to the lack of rain in this particular area) and finally the beautiful golden sunlight! As we liked the place so much and the good weather was expected to last we planned to stay another night and to visit Myra Canyon the next day along with their newly built water adventure and fitness centre called “H20”. This place has Canada’s first indoor surf machine, as well as slides, hot tubs, wave machines and oh not forgetting the full Olympic sized swimming pool they had managed to squeeze in their as well!
Day 13 (distance travelled 0km, 3230km)
We were up early so that we could beat the crowds to Myra Canyon. Directions to the site recommended that all vehicles take a service road which was well serviced and maintained. As we drove up the rather steep “serviced” road at no more than a snail’s pace it became very clear that our understanding of this word was not the same as theirs! We had actually avoided a road slightly worse than this in Hyder on the basis that our insurance would not cover punctures on unmade roads. However, once we were into the road we carried on thinking that it would not be for long, again as suggested by the directions. Twenty bone shaking minutes later we arrived at the car park at the top trying not to think that we would also have to get back down the same road later in the day!
Myra Canyon is apparently world famous, although we smile each time we saw marketing like this. However, this place does actually have something, including history going back almost 100 years!! Myra Canyon tells the story of an interesting piece of railway construction engineering. Kettle Valley Railway Chief Engineer Andrew McCulloch was given the difficult task of building a line to join the town of Hope with the Canadian Pacific Railway mainline at Midway to carry both freight and passengers. In order to get around the canyon he devised a system of 18 trestles (wooden bridges, which seemingly “hang” from the side of the mountain) plus just 2 tunnels. When you see it, you don’t have to be a train spotter or engineer to be impressed by what actually built between 1912 and 1914 and was in use until 1973. It was converted into an attraction for cyclists and hikers after the tracks were taken up in 1980. It was however destroyed during the Okanagan fires of 2003, but was later restored between 2004 and 2008 see www.myratrestles.com.
Having missed out on the “epic” Larch Hills Traverse a few days before this really made up for it and although there is no technical skill required to ride the 12km long trail, riding along the 18 trestles and through the 2 “echoey” tunnels was great fun, and made for some cool photos.
We had lunch on the hill before attempting the drive back down. Luckily we made it safely and then dropped the bikes off before making to H20 by just after 3pm. This facility has to be the best public (YMCA) I have ever seen!
Day 14 (distance travelled 140km, 3370km)
We both felt sad about leaving Kelowna, we loved that place, the beautiful lake, the climate, the modern, clean town, the number of things to do from mountain biking and wakeboarding in the Summer to snowboarding at Big White or Silver Star resorts in the Winter. We both decided we would go back, but didn’t realise just how quickly that would be!
We would drive south to Oliver on a hot sunny day and check in to the Visitor Centre to see what there was to do. Having seen stand up paddle in Kelowna we were both keen to try this out (Svan especially), plus we knew that just south of Oliver was a winery for which we had received two recommendations previously on our travels by the name of “The Burrowing Owl”.
After driving down the highway south which followed the Okanagan Lake for much of the journey, we decided that the roadworks weren’t especially an issue as they just gave us more time to enjoy the beautiful scenery. This lake is big as well as beautiful and is surrounded by rocky, barren hills much as I have seen in photos of Colorado.
When we arrived at the Visitor Centre at Oliver we were “greeted” and I use that word in the loosest sense, by a strange couple of women. The first to eventually speak to us made it clear very quickly that she was the more senior of the two women and that as such she had more important things to do than to speak to newly arrived visitors. She pointed us in the direction of her "assistant" (and trainee) while she in turn returned to her photocopying!
The lady who did spend some time with us had apparently spent her whole life in Oliver, but unfortunately the town was still to make a positive impression on her. She talked us through a couple of bike rides which would be quite "nice to do", and then a couple of RV parks that we could stay at. All the while she passed us as many of the recently photocopied sheets of paper as she could. This was clearly what they understood by “marketing”! We left shortly after uninspired, but with more firestarter for our next campfire. We drove on to the RV parks she had suggested, and it didn’t take long to make up our minds that not only were we missing Kelowna but that Oliver was definitely not the answer! We drove on to Osoyoos thinking this must be better. The Visitor Centre immediately proved us wrong. We were starting to think that maybe it was us. We were being difficult by asking questions like “what is the must do thing to do or see in your town?”, “which facilities are at which RV park?”, “which hikes or cycle trails were their personal favourites and why?”
Osoyoos is however on a lake and there was still the hope of getting out on the water, and whilst the Visitor Centre could point us to the hire shop they couldn’t tell us what was hired or pick up the phone to find out!
After feeling that the day had turned into a bit of a waste of time, we did salvage some fun by hiring a couple of kayaks which we took out on the lake where we enjoyed the sunset.
After dropping the kayaks back to the hire shop, we then went back to our RV (the First Nation themed site named NK'Mip) to lock up for the night.
We were both starting to think that if our RV trip had ended in Kelowna that would have been a great finale but we still had 3 days to spend before returning the RV to Vancouver. I suggested that we go back to Kelowna to try out stand up paddle and then the FlowRider machine at H20. This would mean that we would miss out Manning Park which we had originally planned to visit. With the temperatures now in the high 20’s it made the idea of being in or on water way more appealing than cycling or hiking! We agreed that would be the plan and Manning Park would have to wait for another time when we were next in Vancouver.
Day 15 (distance travelled 270km, 3640km)
The cunning plan that we had devised the night before proved not to quite so cunning as we had hoped…
Firstly my estimate of a journey time back to Kelowna of a “quick” 2 hours was woefully inaccurate as after 2 long delays for roadworks and a fuel stop it actually took us more like 3 hours! What kept us going was the thought of arriving at the beach and jumping straight onto the “stand up” paddle boats.
Sadly as we pulled up at the beach it became painfully apparent that the boat hire shop which had seemingly been open all over the long weekend was not open all day on a Wednesday after the children had returned back to school!
We had to re-group. What better way than over lunch, so Svan quickly threw together a delicious lunch as only she knows how, and we discussed what to do afterwards. Our plan then was to grab a coffee at the wifi café we had found at our previous visit then to go to the gym at H20, where after our work out, we would try out the “FlowRider” ocean wave surf simulator, which we were both still excited about!
The work-out restored our mood after the frustrations of that morning and we were then ready to surf after signing the relevant waiver forms! The board you surf on is similar to a wakeskate (or large skateboard deck) that we had both ridden before, although (as we were about to find out) the riding style is very different!
We were really impressed watching a couple of the local guys and one of the local girls riding on the machine, do 180s, 360s, shuffle 180s and other jump tricks. It turned out that the girl we had been watching actually competed at the 2 venues in Canada plus a selection of the 47 wave simulators in the US.
Then came our turn…clearly this was a time for “ladies first” so Svan grabbed the rope and edged out thinking “how hard can this be??”, she soon found out as her first attempt lasted a few brief seconds. Then however came my turn which I’m sorry to say was even shorter!
However, even the wipe outs on the machine are great fun and we both dashed back for more. This thing really put a smile on our faces and we both got better at the surf style of riding required and can’t wait to have another go, maybe when we are in the US!
Funnily Svan was not restricting her “striptease show” solely to passing Austrian canoeists in the Yukon! She struggled to keep her bikini on each time she fell and hit the water, and certainly provided quite a show for anyone watching! Suddenly the bold German skinny dipper went all shy…
We had to finish up at 6 if we to have a chance to try out stand up paddle assuming they had re-opened after school. Sadly stand up paddling will have to wait until the seas of New Zealand rather than the still, warm waters of Okanagan Lake as the hire shop was still closed. So we got on the highway and headed to the town of Merritt one step further to our final destination of Vancouver.
We entered Merritt under cover of darkness..
Day 16 (distance travelled 130km, 3770km)
We’d definitely had our suspicions as we had entered Merritt the night before but then during the night it sounded like the Claybanks RV park was actually in the middle of a building site! We fully expected to open the blinds in the morning and to see cranes and digger trucks surrounding the park.
That morning it soon became apparent that Merritt was as ugly as Kelowna was pretty, and it explained why it did not get more than a mention in the tourist guides…. unfortunately that mention was not to “steer well clear”. Upon further investigation it turned out that the noise had been coming from one of the many saw mills in the town. It was a town full of industry, again unlike Kelowna.
We left as soon as possible feeling tired and a bit ratty after having our sleep interrupted during the night, and headed towards the town of “Hope”. Would there be hope in “Hope”?? Although pretty at first sight we were slightly concerned when we saw that Hope badged itself as the “Chainsaw Capital of Canada”. It is sad when towns such as this have to try and find a gimmicky way to try and promote themselves with things such as annual carving competitions! They had then proceeded to fill the whole town with wood carved monstrocities of eagles, bears and owls. The worst we saw had to be the one at the petrol station of a petrol attendant standing next to a filling pump! If I had my way I would clean up the town and send all of the offending carvings straight to the saw mills of Merritt!
Luckily we were prepared to overlook these and liked everything else about the town including the very nice lady in the Visitor Centre! She pointed us in the direction of the town’s two most popular hikes “The Mount Hope Lookout Trail” and the “Othello Tunnels Trail”, and to what turned out to be one of our favourite RV parks of the trip (Coquihalla Campground). The Visitor Centre also explained that the town had been the setting to Sylvester Stallone’s movie “First Blood” and the main two points of interest in the movie featured in the film. These were the town’s old bridge (actually being taken down the day we arrived as a newer more modern replacement was already in place) and the tunnels. The tunnels had originally formed the other end of the rail line that we had seen in Kelowna. We could immediately see what a great backdrop these, the river and the surrounding mountains would provide for First Blood and the many other movies filmed in the town. The town’s lake (Kawkawa) is also a pretty spot where we enjoyed lunch.
We ended the day having a beer by the campfire with cooked pork with asparagus and onion (Svan also tried her first attempt at making bread over the fire). We really enjoyed our time there, it was great to get back on a high after the disappointments of Oliver, Osoyoos and Merritt!
Day 17 (distance travelled 130km, 3900km)
With an early start we arrived at our designated RV campground (Burnaby Cariboo) in Vancouver by 11.30am. This had an RV washing facility which we would have to use before returning back to Canadream the next day.
After getting this chore out of the way we proceeded to just chill for the rest of the day and reflect on our latest adventure!
Our RV roadtrip from Whitehorse in the Yukon all the way to Vancouver in the south of British Columbia feels like another great adventure during which we have covered nearly 4000km in 17 days. The RV gave us the great flexibility to do things and go to places that we spotted along the way or just to take some time out and chill. It also given us the opportunity to see things which not everyone can, such as the amazing 60km stretch of road into Stewart with breathtaking views of Bear’s Glacier, waterfalls, the river and mountain as you made each turn, an 800lb Grizzly fishing for salmon in Hyder, the waterfalls in Wells Gray Park, the World's furthest inland rainforest, plus the awesome natural hotsprings in Laird, oh and not forgetting the whacky “Signpost Forest” in Watson Lake. I would highly recommend this type of trip to anyone wanting to see and explore this beautiful country!
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