We are writing this blog on Wednesday, as we have a secret covert mission towards the end of this week that we will enlighten you with in due course. Since Saturday, we have been on a road trip starting in the central Okanagan and including nearly risking a run in with Trump along the US border, a mountain retreat in Fernie and some laundry in Radium Hot Springs.
We started the trip from our housesit in Kelowna. We left our new kitty friend behind and headed slightly south on Saturday and Sunday, through the towns of Penticton, Oliver (clearly the best place ever) and Osoyoos. We had visited Osoyoos before during our holiday in 2018, so we said hello to the “Watermark Resort” where we had stayed previously (not the most attractive name…). The area is famous for vineyards, but we didn’t taste much wine this time as we reckon we drank more than our fair share in 2018. We had a relaxed time, visited a few beaches and wandered around the towns. We did find a rather divisive pub, which we obviously avoided, and Rosie found her favourite cumin gouda cheese in a deli for lunch instead.
After leaving Osoyoos, there wasn’t a lot to do until we started to get closer to the Rockies. On Monday we had a long day of driving across to Fernie on the far east side of British Columbia. We had carefully planned the 6 hour drive to arrive before the tourist information office closed, but forgot that we crossed into a different time zone. We missed the office, but managed to plan a hike for ourselves anyway. (Before anyone asks, Rosie did approximately 2/5 of the driving… and 5/5 of the stressing.)
The next morning, we attempted to get up early, but it was a bit cold for getting out of sleeping bags. We had decided to hike a portion of “Heiko’s Trail”, a beautiful traverse through the mountains near Fernie. After a bit of a drive up a bumpy road, something Ollie is getting pretty good at now, we parked near the trail. We were all alone apart from a creepy ghost car… The trail had waterfalls, a cave, a canyon, mountain views, forests, meadows and our favourite… rock falls with pikas! It took us about 4 hours to get up to Three Sisters Pass.
We almost made it down without any mishaps, but then clumsy Rosie slipped on a damp rock and bashed her shin. The bruise was disappointingly small.
The following day, after treating ourselves to bagels for breakfast from a cafe in Fernie, we set off on the slightly shorter drive to Radium Hot Springs. This time we did make it in time to go to the tourist information office so we could buy our park passes. A pass is required to enter the national parks and are valid for a year. This year, we will probably just visit Kootenay National Park and perhaps Mount Revelstoke or Glacier National Parks. Next year we can use it to see some more.
We had some unfortunate news on Sunday, that our last WorkAway host would not be able to host us for two weeks in October. We made the decision to extend our AirBnB in Sun Peaks rather than try and find another. This should give us a bit more time to work on making some cash. Anyway, best getting on with our secret mission…
Roaming Rollie 
What did Ollie say to Rosie before they went into the bat cave?
LikeLike
Park in it, man?
LikeLike
Holy coronavirus, Batman! What were you thinking, who woulda thought you would relocate our secret hideout to the Canadian wilds! Don’t like the look of the Batmobile, though. I told you not to let those picas live in it!
Oh and the answer to your conundrum is……. Get in the bat cave, Rosie!
LikeLike
No picas in the batmobile… But there was a mouse in the car. Or perhaps I shouldn’t have let that slip as it is a spoiler for next week’s blog!
LikeLike
“And here we see the native Mountain Rollie. Unlike their name sake they always appear to be a little uncomforatble when it comes to climbing rocks and prefer stand there and wimper untill someone helps them down. A foraging species, they mainly live off beans and fruits and can be found hiding from whatever did that poop”.
Looks beautiful, I am glad the skies cleared up!!
I hope you ‘Fernie-sh’ you secret mission soon so you can tell us what it is… do we get an extra blog post? Or do we have to wait till next week??
LikeLike
Hehe. You’re not supposed to hide, you’re supposed to make yourself big and tell them to go away!
You probably have to wait until next week cos that’s when we’ll have electricity and proper internet
LikeLike
Some more amazing shots…still envious! Phil says he would have gone in that pub, ordered some drinks, asked them WHY it’s called the Brexit Pub, and if the answer was what you expected, walked out without drinking or paying!! (I wouldn’t have done that, obviously!)
I think you should have a blog on ‘Canadian wild animal poo identification’ – looks like a lot of poo for a small animal!!
Looking forward to the next episode x
LikeLike
Phil is braver than us! There weren’t even any windows to peer in and see if the staff were bigger than us! We did actually think about the poop blog idea when a three year old at one of our work aways pooped in the garden 😂 perhaps we’ll save it for a slow month. That one must be bear, but bear normally has a lot more berries in!
LikeLike
The Brexit Pub sells German, Danish, Belgian, Italian, Greek and Turkish Poutine so can not be that serious. It is British Colombia!
Maybe that poop is a Puma communal latrine.? Oooooooo.
No I can not see the campsite.
LikeLike
You’re right. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they are just brits that made their own exit to Canada!
There is a bench and a fire pit next to two yellow trees in the middle. To the right of that there is a patch clear of rocks for your tent. It is very small… This was a tricky one haha
LikeLike