I decided to head down to the town of Osoyoos at the southern end of the Okanagan Valley. The town is said to be situated in a desert, and it has the warmest weather in Canada. A desert in British Columbia? This sounded like an interesting place, so I sat off on the 110 km journey, passing through the towns of Hedley and Keremeos.
The photo's (more):
The very small Bromley Rock Provincial Park just outside of Princeton. This would have made a nice camping spot, but unfortunately one never know these things beforehand. In the future, before settling on camp site, I'll have a look around for these small Provincial Parks. It looks like there's hundreds of these around British Columbia.
Again, some very nice scenery throughout the day.
I stopped for brunch in the old gold rush town of Hedley. The Hitching Post felt like a typical saloon, and it even sported those little swing doors on the way to the restrooms. I had a mammoth meal here, which pulled met through the day.
Just as I was about to leave town, I saw this little girl selling lemonade. Classic! I just had to buy a glass, and at 50 cents, it was a steal. She was quite the little business woman too. Tried her luck at keeping the full dollar. Lol. Capitalism is alive and well in Canada.
I met Asha here, the guy in the photo. He was cycling from Vancouver to Nelson. It looked as if he just packed a bag, grabbed his old mountain bike and sat off on the trip. Quite cool.
The next stop was the town of Keremeos, renowned for it's fruit and wine farms, or ranches rather. I stopped to buy a few peaches and fill up the tank with water.
According to my guidebook, the name is of native origin, meaning "a place where the winds meet". The town lies in the centre of a T-junction between three large valley's, and indeed this seemed to be the case. I was met with a steady head wind as I left town, down the south-eastern valley.
Stunning. Felt like it was a scene from Far and Away.
The entire day was downhill, but unfortunately there was a 600 m (ascent) hill to get over just before Osoyoos. This is the photo looking back. The climb wasn't too bad though. I still think a lower gear ratio would make life a lot easier. I'll try to change them in two day's time when I get to the larger city of Penticton.
The sight from the other side of the hill. I'm not too sure I agree with the claims of it being a desert, but it was considerably drier than rest of the province. The valley floor is covered in wine farms. The warm sun and abundant water supply, makes for ideal growing conditions.
I wasn't too impressed with Osoyoos. I was expecting a small desert town, but instead found a noisy, bustling vacation spot filled with water-skiing jocks and brown leather skinned bodies. The lake was full of boats pumping their stereo's to the max, people were burning their noisy V8 trucks down the streets, and there just seemed to be a general sumgness about town. It all seemed like one big pissing contest, where the class/money scale was tipping in the wrong direction. I have neither of the two, so I'm still good.
The first place I found with camping availability was this water park. Too tired to care or continue looking for a better spot, I decided it would suffice and I camped next to the slides. Haha. So that was a first, and probably a last.
Gist: A long day in the saddle, but there was plenty to look at during the trip. The first 90 km or so had a gentle downhill gradient, which made for easy cycling. The final hill was quite big, but the legs felt surprisingly well. I did realize that I was developing a bit of a, shall we say, "saddle problem", which made life a bit harder. It is amazing that each day was different with its own set of challenges.
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