Over the past three days we have travelled almost 1000 kms over the Rockies, through the desert, eventually reaching sea level for the first time in over 11,000 Kms. The first day it rained incessantly, making the journey a little difficult, although it didn't spoil our enjoyment of the views.
We passed many lakes and rivers, this one had a lot of houseboats on it, some privately owned but many rented. The rain makes our pictures a little unclear unfortunately.
On the second day we passed through a desert, not quite the Sahara though, more scrubland with a few trees. The rain had stopped, giving us a lovely day's travel through some interesting countryside, through valleys and hills, with rivers and lakes in abundance.
This is Shushwap Lake, we followed it's two arms for almost 50kms, escorted by a railway most of the way. The road took us through a town called Salmon Arm, a haven for fishermen. Most of the creeks and smaller rivers are breeding grounds for Pacific Salmon here.
On the way we were warned about falling rocks many times, and we were glad to see these guys fastening a net on the rock face. Three of these man are suspended on ropes, and there are still more higher up.
I was surprised to see this sign, we are not too far below snow on the tops of the mountains, and I wouldn't have thought they could survive the winter up here.
Another view of the scrubland, looking down on an attractive river. To the left you can see the road as it snakes down and then up again. For the entire three days there were very few straight stretches.
We passed many of these signs- it is safety first here. Also we found that when filling our car we have to pay first by law in British Columbia, there must have been problems in the past. We also found that fuel here is more expensive than anywhere we have been here, $1.26 against 92 cents in Alberta.
When we stopped in the desert overnight we were told that it hardly ever rains there, we awoke the next morning to pouring rain, and had to put up with for most of that days travel, along with cloud on the mountains. But the views were still stunning as we once again travelled through lakes and forests.
Just another view....
We met this young lady and here sister in a village as we passed through, a white tailed deer. There is the full range of animals in these forests, from bears to wolves, even wild horses, and from time to time we would see warning signs.
This rock had fallen from on high onto the road, there were guys on the mountain sending down the loose rocks and we had to wait for twenty minutes while they did that and cleared one side of the road for us to get through. They were so high up we couldn't get a decent shot of them, but we could clearly see the rocks crashing down the mountainside.
In one of the rivers we came across this logjam, we think that they had come down the river from avalanches during the winter.It stretched right across a reasonably fast flowing river, maybe 60 mtrs wide.
Drawing nearer the coast there were still many mountains with snow on the north facing tops, and we spotted a couple of glaciers. Again the rain didn't make taking clear pictures easy!
Glastonbury in BC! This is a huge music festival taking place in Pemberton, we saw maybe a dozen stages, and they are expecting over 40,000 young people to be there. I think most of them were in the village itself waiting in the queue in front of us for lunch!
Whole fields of tents either side of the road, and from there all the way down to Vancouver the traffic coming up was continuous. It looked pretty full as we passed, so I don't know where they will put the newcomers!
Tomorrow we cross to Vancouver Island by Ferry for three nights, if it lives up to it's reputation we are in for a treat.
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