Trestles and Fruit in British Columbia

We drove from Kokanee Creek Provincial Park to Kelowna through the back roads. We wanted to soak in some hot springs, so stopped in Nakusp (a 10 km detour up a canyon) to enjoy a lovely hot spring in the trees.  We had reserved campsites at a lovely RV park on the outskirts of Kelowna which abutted a greenway and was close to the Kettle Valley RR Trestle Rail-to-Trail.  The RV Park had lovely flowers, organic vegies, chickens (to whom we fed our scraps), free range eggs, etc.  The next morning we decided to walk on the Trestles of the KVR.  Local supporters convinced the provincial government to turn the railroad line into a park just in time for a huge fire which destroyed several of
the trestles.  Local volunteers worked to rebuild the trestles.  You can rent bicycles to ride the 12 km, but we walked about 4 km round trip to see about five of the trestles.  I was struck by the benches along the way which had imitated the trestles.  









This is the tallest trestle on the line.  We did not go that far, but could see it across the valley.












Here you see some of the rock walls that were used as fill.












View of three trestles.













In the afternoon we went to an artisan goat cheese company and tasted wonderful cheese and ate paninis and goat milk gelato and then visited four wineries and tasted wine.  At this winery there was a three-hole, very short disc golf course.  The rain relented just enough for Bob and Joe Wiatt to play the course twice.













The Okanagan Valley was in the midst of its apple harvest.  One of the wineries was in a fruit shed mainly used for apples and making hard cider.  We stopped at numerous fruit stands as we made our way to Manning Provincial Park to buy fresh fruit and vegetables and to eat samosas.  There were all sorts of apple varieties that I had never tried.  We also bought several bottles of Okanagan wine.  We drove to Manning Provincial Park, which is just north of the North Cascades National Park and just below the summit.  It was cool and rainy.  We parked the RVs and took off to Hope to visit the Othello tunnels (also on the KVR branch).  The Coquilla branch of the KVR was what connected the Canadian Pacific RR to the coast.  It went through Coquilla Canyon where they built four tunnels.  They too have been turned into a rails-to-trails walk.  The rain relented while we walked and we returned to our cool trailers.  When we awoke it had frozen over night.  Fall and winter are definitely on their way.  We have had lots of rain since we got to Glacier National Park, with the occasional sunny day.  On the way to Hope we passed the Hope slide (1985 or so), which replaced the Frank slide as the largest slide in Canada, though it didn't kill very many people or destroy the highway and railroad like the Frank slide did.


























We took the ferry to Vancouver Island and drove to Helen and Bill's house.  The fishermen got up at 4:30 a.m. the next morning to fish for salmon on the west shore in the Pacific.  They didn't catch anything, but had a grand time on a glorious day.  Helen and I went to walk on the Kinsel Trestle, the tallest trestle in North America.  It too is part of a rails-to-trails project.






As we walked down the trail we came upon this rocking horse with a hand-written invitation to ride it and hand-written requests to keep dogs on leash to protect the free-range chickens.

The next day we went out in a light rain to put out prawn and crab traps.  While we waited the requisite two hours, we ate lunch on Saltspring Island.  The rain abated and we pulled up our traps (no prawns, but 8 crabs).  We had a delicious dinner of crab louis salad with enough crab to sate everyone.  Today we will put out prawn traps again, though the weather is terrible (raining).