Having not slept stunningly, we decided to make an early start and headed off about 6.30am. We decided to head for a place called Bridal Falls – just under a couple of hours drive to the east of Vancouver. There we found a restaurant called Ranchers and were inducted into the long process of choosing what you want to eat. Having selected perogies, egg and sausage (mainly to find out what perogies were …. ), I then had to decide how I wanted my eggs – apparently ‘cooked’ is not an adequate answer. I went for ‘over easy’. Then I had to choose what toast from a list of around five different ones, then ….. Eventually, you do manage to order. I now know that perogies are a mini dough pasty type dish. The dough is stuffed with potato, cheese and onion. They originate from the prewar region of Poland called Red Ruthenia (today it is a territory of Ukraine). After breakfast we walked up to the bridal veil falls – a lovely walk through what felt like rainforest and we realised why this part of Canada is green – there is a lot of rain! The falls were stunning and well worth the walk …
From Bridal Falls, we headed along Highway 1 and then turned off onto the Crows Nest Highway – number 3. It was a lovely drive through the mountains with gradually changing scenery and always something to look at. We stopped for lunch at Princeton – a town in the Similkameen region of southern British Columbia, Canada. It is just east of the Cascade Mountains and is a huge centre for mining copper. The entire mountainside was stripped bare and it was possible to see the areas of the hillside which had previously been mined and were slowly reverting back to nature. In Princeton we found a lovely cafe with butter tarts and a spelt flour muffin – not a conventional lunch, but quite enough after our excessive breakfast …. We also met some of the local residents.
From Princeton we headed on towards Osoyoos through Keremeos. This area is a valley – suddenly much warmer than the previous mountain areas and completely cultivated. All sorts of fruit and vines are grown here and it is apparently known as the ‘fruit stand’ capital of Canada. A fruit stand is basically a shop/stall selling bulk fruit and fruit products and the variety was huge. We stopped at one and bought some fruit and stopped and an organic fruit shop, though this time the fruit had all been turned into alcohol. An fascinating tasting ensued of pear cider (perry), apple and rhubarb cider, cherry wine, plum wine and various others which started to blur into one , though in a very positive way. The tasting worked, in the sense that we came out loaded with bottles ….
From there it was under an hour’s drive to Osoyoos. This is the southernmost town in the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia between Penticton and Omak. The town is just 2 miles north of the United States border with Washington state and is adjacent to the Osoyoos Indian Reserve – about 32,000 acres of land managed by the Osoyoos Indian Band. There are currently around 400 people in the band (a term for the people of the reserve).
We are staying close to the edge of the lake in a motel imaginatively named Lakeview Motel …..