Presently sitting at the B.C. Ferry’s Tsawwassen Terminal after a great trip to visit family and to cycle and walk in the Okanagan Valley. Um, there were also a few visits to several fine wineries as well.
I’ll start this first post in a series of entries here and finish it at home as I want to publish them for our close relative and friend Puck who is recovering in Holland after some difficult surgery of which we were just made aware. Puck has followed our many rambles and caminos over the past 7 years. When I’ve walked alone on some long, difficult days I knew that she and others were following along with me which always served to provide a boost. This time Puck is walking her own difficult path and it’s my turn to return the favour. Though we are presently separated by many kilometres during these cursed Covid times, know that we are thinking about you Puck.
A couple of days later;
We drove up to Kelowna on September 6th to visit Annemarie's mother and sister for a couple of days. They don't use social media or computers so the only way we can stay in touch is via the telephone. Fair enough, but sometimes careful face to face contact is important in these times.
While staying with them we headed out early each morning to keep things moving. We circled a beautiful bird sanctuary and then headed off into the local community.
We even saw a beaver close up here, but he was too fast for me to get my phone out. That reminds me, many of the photos posted this trip were taken with my old iPhone7, but there are also a number of photos taken with my well used, but still loved, battered and bruised Sony. A new camera update is floating in the back of my mind, but I likely won't acquire it until I'm able to travel again. Hopefully Spring 2021. So these walking photos are taken with my phone, and I'm still impressed with the outcomes in the right conditions.
Others were up early too!
We also walked across for a visit with my cousin Gord and his wife Karen where we shared wine and homemade chocolate chip cookies at the back of their beautiful new duplex. Ha! Don't knock that sampling combination until you've tried it! A crisp white wine goes nicely with a chocolate chip cookie. As a matter of interest I've never found anything that a quality chocolate chip cookie doesn't complement!
On Tuesday we departed Kelowna and established our base camp at a provincial camp ground right on Okanagan Lake that we'd scouted out on our way into Kelowna. There are two campgrounds. The South Camp is like something out of a John Steinbeck book depicting the homeless migrants during the American 30's Depression. The sites where jammed together and it was pretty much overrun. The North Campground just up the lake was more like what we were looking for. The campground is tiered with about 8 levels up from the lake. The closer one is to the lake the better as it's quieter the lower one goes and the views and access to the lake are much nicer. We arrived in time to find a campsite on the second level up from the lake and then headed off to checkout Summerland wineries! We have visited Thornhaven Winery on several occasions and have come to particularly appreciate their multiple award winning Gewürztraminers and this visit was no different. The owner is very approachable and he told us that we should be consuming any 'old' bottles that happen to be cellared at home that are older than 4 years. I checked my stock on our return and we still have a 2013 left, a bronze metal winner. Guess that will be consumed fairly soon! We picked up a couple more bottles to add to our cellar with the goal firmly established to come home from this trip with at least a case of various wines. Two fisted Annie!
The grapes looked excellent only a few weeks ahead of harvest! I tasted one and a flood of camino memories came rushing back. Steady Geoff, maybe next year.
We arrived back in camp and were thinking about enjoying happy hour when Annemarie noticed that the site below us on the lowest level looked like they weren't staying. The park operator was talking to the site occupant and the latter seemed to be getting ready to depart. I decided to walk down to chat and discovered that they had in fact decided to depart. And yes, if we left a camp chair we could move down in about 30 minutes. Nice. Returning to our campsite, we quickly broke camp loaded up the car to the roof and drove down to wait for their imminent departure. Sitting there on the side of the road I felt like a bit of a vulture! It was worth it: )
They left and we moved in. After setting up camp, including our new MRS tent we started planning possible rides for the next day. Through a route guide lent to us by our son-in-law Paul we were able to locate cycling and walking routes throughout the valley, most of which were new to us.
The park operator came by and told us that we had the best site in the campground. His friend had been the one who occupied it before us. For the next week folks would cruise by and ask us when we were leaving. Never!
It was a pretty nice view across the lake with lots of trees to protect us from the hot sun through most of the day, though we were only to be there late afternoon and evening each day.
A quick look at our local swimming hole. The smoke around that day was caused by a flash fire north of us at Kalamalka Lake. A truck caught fire and very quickly the fire spread, burning about 30 hectares. Smoke the length of the valley, but the next morning it was gone.
Happy hour!
The next day we planned to cycle around the edge of the old volcanic basin to the west of Summerland. But first some serious camping!
I'll post details of our first ride in a day or so.
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