Monday August 30th, Clearwater & Wells Gray Provincial Park
We got up fairly early to drive into Wells Gray Provincial Park. To the Helmchen Falls is 45 km and we also went up to Clearwater Lake on the very good unpaved road (another 25 km). The park is known for lots of wildlife (lots of people see bears here), but of course we weren’t so lucky We did have a great drive as the scenery is again amazing, and esp. the road to Clearwater Lake was so beautiful. We walked to a few viewpoints like the Dawson Falls and Bailey’s Chute, rapids where we saw a few salmons try to jump upstream (still a bit early for the yearly salmon run though)! Most spectacular was of course the high Helmcken Falls. At the lake we had a hot chocolate and the best cranberry streusel cake after an Austrian family recipe
Back at the campground we had lots of time left to relax and enjoy the beloved view over Dutch Lake. We also had supper at the great restaurant there, The Painted Turtle. Not the cheapest, but sooo good! Very original and tasty food and we sat outside on their patio overlooking the lake.
Tomorrow we leave for Fintry (on the westside of Lake Okanagan between Vernon and Kelowna) for 2 nights without hookups. We have booked a site with some views on the lake, so I’m curious to see that! But first we will be visiting a few fellow Dutch immigrants, Chantal and Suus in Glenemma and Petra in Yankee Flats. Then the next day we will see our friends from our old hometown Heerlen again, John and Diana who now live in Westbank, so excited!!
Friday August 27th, Revelstoke – Herald Provincial Park
After making some sandwiches and coffee, we left lovely Revelstoke to go to Shuswap Lake (only 130 km). Although there’s a lot to see on that route, we didn’t stop in a lot of places. We drove through a beautiful, narrow valley past the huge Three Valley Gap resort with its bright red roofs, Griffin Lake, the Crazy Creek falls (had I known their suspension bridge could be seen from the road for a second, I would’ve taken a picture) and the Enchanted Forest. The weather was partly sunny in the beginning, but when we stopped at a colourful looking supermarket in Malakwa, rain showers had come in from over the mountain. All this time we’d been on the highway 1, the Trans Canada Highway, which at that point is just a fairly small 2 way lane (with some sections with passing lanes) where lots of (big) traffic is rushing through as if they were still on the huge 4 lane parts of the biggest highway of this country. Needless to say as a tourist you feel rushed having to speed past this gorgeous scenery and we were glad to have the opportunity to take a rural road (the Cambie Solsqua Rd) to Sicamous after Malakwa.
In Sicamous we forgot about wanting to see Mara Lake (we should’ve followed the Vernon sign for that) and missed the turn to go downtown, so before we knew it we were on our way to Salmon Arm and decided to go on and take a break there. In the meantime we had some great views (even with the rain) on the spectacular Shuswap Lake for the first time! In Salmon Arm it was sooo busy downtown (looks like everybody wanted to go shopping in this weather) that we couldn’t find a parking spot until we went down to the pier. In the rain and cold wind coming from the lake, we walked onto the pier for a few pics. Such a beautiful place, but we couldn’t fully enjoy it that way (despite my raincoat, I had to change into dry and warm clothes right away after in the RV). Like Revelstoke, we need to come back in good weather We continued on the hasty 1 until the exit to Herald Provincial Park. That road was small, windy and absolutely stunning (and it was dry for the time being)! After passing many cabins and the resort town of Sunnybrae, we arrived at the provincial park and our site (11) not far from the entrance. We wanted to explore the rest of the park but were so hungry that I first made some spaghetti and then we got so tired that we layed down for a nap first… to wake up after dark! That was the end of it…
Saturday August 28th, Herald Provincial Park
In the morning we were eager to explore the park, so we walked down to the beach (woooow, the view!), followed the beach to the other side of the campground (jumping over the Reinecker creek), then back to the trail along the creek to the Margaret Falls. The forest is pretty dense by the creek and the campsites in that area are gorgeous (ours is more shrubs and less trees). Once you leave the park, the trail enters a canyon, but the elevation gain is still not much, so it’s really easy for pretty much everybody! After only 500m in total you get to the falls. We didn’t expect much as the creek is just small, but the falls were actually very pretty!
Back at the campsite we relaxed for a while and later in the afternoon we took some chairs and our books to the beach, as it was the Shuswap Lake we came here for! That was absolutely fantastic, we just sat there and didn’t read, but kept taking in the awesome scenery! It was only 16C or so, but the sun came out quite a bit, so it was great.
Herald Provincial Park, Shuswap Lake
Sunday August 29th, Herald PP – Clearwater
When we woke up we found out the house battery of our RV was already empty, probably because we had the furnace on (even though it didn’t start up often). We should’ve used the generator more often in the hours you’re allowed to, to recharge not only our electronics, but also the house battery. The BC provincial parks are beautiful, but we missed a power hook up. No recharging without the noisy generator, no watching ‘The Big Bang Theory’ in the evenings!
We left Herald early and had breakfast in Sorrento at Toby’s Coffee House, which turned out to be a great choice! We continued on the 1 to Kamloops and past Chase the landscape changed dramatically. The hills were bare and dry, more desert like. In Kamloops we took the 5 north and soon we got into a more forested landscape again. As the 5 is still a pretty busy highway, we decided to leave it for a bit and in Little Ford we took the 24 to Bridge Lake, drove around the lake and back to the 5 (after having an expensive cappuccino at a motel in a log house on Lac de Roches, but we had a very nice chat with the Italian lady there and the setting was beautiful). In Clearwater we found the Dutch Lake Resort & RV Park and Nico thinks it’s the prettiest he’s seen so far this trip, because of the view on the little lake! And they have wifi… so it’s time for this update!
My dad Harry’s 92nd birthday! I called him before going to work at 6am. Yes 6am… because we were leaving for our vacation after my shift! I unfortunately had to cut the shift a bit short because of a migraine, but I rested a bit at home and we could leave at around 1pm. After a late lunch break at Tim Hortons in Swift Current and for gas near Medicine Hat, we got as far as Bassano at dusk (about 620 km). We found a spot at the tiny self-registration campground in town and had some late supper at… Harry’s Place! I thought that was an appropriate ending of my dad’s birthday
Wednesday August 25th, Bassano AB – Lake Louise AB
As much as we love the majestic sound of the horns of trains here in Canada, it does wake you up when we’re not used to having them close by. So we woke up at 5.30am and since they kept coming every 20 mins or so, we felt wide awake and decided to get an early start on today’s driving. It was beautiful to get out there in the early sunlight and it was only 10am when we arrived at Bragg Creek. We stopped at the mall for a break and ended up spending at least an hour and a half there… the vacation feeling had arrived!
It had paid off to keep going until dusk the day before, because today we only had to drive 4 or so hrs to get to our first stop in the mountains, Lake Louise. So we took our time in Bragg Creek, and planned to take another break by Johnston Canyon on the Bow Valley Parkway passed Banff. The kitties were doing well, you could see some of them react a little scared when we entered the mountains, but they settled again soon. When we got to Johnston Canyon, it was so busy that we couldn’t park our RV at all (besides in the ditch with the risk of tipping over, ugh), so we just went on to the Lake Louise Campground where we arrived at 1pm (and again we didn’t see any wildlife on the Bow Valley Parkway BTW). We got site 128 at the end of the campground and had lots of time left for relaxing (lunch, nap, relaxing, walk, BBQ ) It was hot too, around 25C!
Thursday August 26, Lake Louise AB – Revelstoke BC
After breakfast we left the campground at 10am, got gas in town and followed highway 1, through the beautiful Kicking Horse pass where we saw a few bighorn sheep, passed Golden and through Glacier National Park where we stopped at the Rogers Pass for a visit to the visitor centre. When we got to Revelstoke, we drove up the Meadows of the Sky Parkway up Mt. Revelstoke and got some breathtaking views over the town. But some thunderstorms were moving in and by the time we got to the upper parking lot, it had just started to rain and hail a bit. We decided to wait it out for a while, Nico took a nap and I got on my laptop for this report
After an hour we decided to head back to town, we had a good meal at the bar-restaurant The Village Idiot and when we got out it had cleared up! We walked around a bit and drove to the Lamplighter Campground on the other side of the river, it was much cuter than I had expected. I walked to the river for a few more pics at dusk and right now I’m using the wifi to update this
Tomorrow we drive to Herald Provincial Park at Shuswap Lake where we will be staying for 2 days. There’s a lot to see on the way there and the weather is supposed to clear up tomorrow. After that we’ll go to Clearwater where we’ll have wifi again. See you then!
Just a few more days before we go to Beautiful British Columbia! We are VERY excited to see a bit more of this province and visit a few fellow immigrants This route is already 3500 km without any trips or detours, but of course half of it will be getting to BC from Regina [...]
Our first trip with the motorhome was last year May and Manitou Beach was where we went. We always wanted to go back to see what it would look like without snow and with green trees Well, we checked it out last week and it was even prettier than we expected!! So many (high) trees, so much shade, cosy sites as well as big pull through ones, only the new section in the back is still without trees. And as a bonus they have wifi these days
On Friday we got there after a big storm and part of the site was flooded. That disappeared pretty fast, even though we still had some rain that day. In the evening we walked to town to have supper at Sam’s Steakhouse at the spa hotel.
Saturday started clouded and a bit chilly, but in the afternoon the sun came out and it was really pleasant. I hiked part of the Nature Trail outside the campground and we just chilled most of the day. In the evening Astrid, Jos and Laurens came to visit us from Wakaw! We barbecued all night and had a great time
On Sunday we had to go home again, but we first went for a drive along Little Manitou Lake and had breakfast at Sam’s. Two thumbs up for a fun weekend (esp with the Molendijks) and a great campground to chill at!
Well treed sites and campground, we had a full serviced site for $22, a day pass for the Regional Park was $5, washrooms and showers free (outdated, didn’t look too good, but clean), playground, camp kitchens, no store… but wifi! Golf course across the street, it’s 1 km to the village of Manitou Beach (www.watrousmanitou.com) with beaches, spa hotel, pool, coffee shop, diner, fast food, bar, tennis, mini-golf, dancehall and more, 6 km back to Watrous for more amenities.
Duck Mountain was high on our wish list and finally we made it there! There is something so exciting about getting to a park in the boreal forest – the wilderness, the scenery, the wildlife. Even though we didn’t see any bears or moose (not even deer), we were very impressed by the park and the campsites.
Wednesday July 28
On Wednesday we drove to Madge Lake (around 3.5 hrs). I was having a migraine and wasn’t able to get some sleep in the motorhome, but the thought of camping and fresh forest air coming up got me through it Also, a nice shopping stop in Yorkton gave some distraction. At the Pickerel Point campground we had site #93, which was close to the general store and the beach. All we did for the rest of the day was relax, eat a really good burger at the concession and have a look at the beach.
Thursday July 29
We spent all day in the campground area. Relax, read, relax, walk around the campground and deserted group camping areas, relax, BBQ, relax and watched the sunset on the beach. When we called to make reservations a week before going, we were only able to get an electric site for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday because of the busy August long weekend. So we were advised to ask the staff in the campground office every day if there was a cancellation for the Saturday night (for an electric site) and today we already got lucky!
Friday July 30
We finally became more active and biked the beautiful bike path to Ministik Beach (parts of the Woodlands trail). WOW!! Wide enough, good quality, through different kinds of forest: sometimes fairly open so you could scan the forest for possible bears, sometimes with high bushes right by the trail so you wouldn’t know what would be around the corner. We regularly rang our bell, called out and sang, and luckily we didn’t bump eh… bike into any bears We had an ice cream by the Lakeside Service and went back pretty quick, because there was a storm coming our way. We got back just in time and for hours we had clouds and some light rain, but we could still sit outside underneath our awning.
Saturday July 31
Today we had to switch sites to #39, also a very beautiful and shady site. We took the opportunity to drive into the wilderness before going to our new site, and we were advised to take the well maintained gravel road to Batka Lake and the ski hill (about 12 km one way). It was truly beautiful, we passed many different sorts of forest, lakes/ponds and bogs until we came to the closed gate by the ski hill. We turned around and stopped at the Batka Lake picnic area for a bit on our way back. We also drove to Kamsack to get some booze for the night
Once we got settled on our new campsite and listened to the Riders game on (the neighbour’s) radio, we also saw our friends Michelle and Boyd, who had let us know that they were also coming to Madge Lake with family. They were staying 4 sites away from us, so after our BBQ we ended up spending the evening there! They fed us (Nico mostly) quite a bit of Black Russians, so we had lots of fun until the early hours! Thanks Ryan, Tracy, Michelle, Boyd & kids!
Sunday August 1
We slept in, had a quick breakfast and left around noon… although we didn’t WANT to leave!! Duck Mountain is another park that stole our hearts! We STILL have to see our first Saskatchewanian bear or moose though…
Birch is one part of the Pickerel Point Campground, situated in a beautiful boreal forest setting by Madge Lake. The campgrounds are about 6 km away from the core area, but there’s a store, concession and small beach. Electric site is $22, we had a year pass for the PP. There was a service centre with showers, but also small toilet buildings that had flush toilets (clean enough) or pit toilets (smelly). One of our favourite parks!
We are Nico and Marlies Wobben and in February 2008 we moved from the Netherlands to Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada! Nico is an RN at the General Hospital and I (Marlies) work from home, as an administrator at Canada Life and for my own web design business Feel The Fire. And we have 6 cats!
Wij zijn Nico en Marlies Wobben en in februari 2008 zijn we verhuisd van Nederland naar Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada! Nico is verpleegkundige in het General Hospital en ik (Marlies) werk thuis als administrator bij Canada Life en voor mijn eigen web design bedrijf Feel The Fire. En we hebben 6 katten!
We got up fairly early to drive into Wells Gray Provincial Park. To the Helmchen Falls is 45 km and we also went up to Clearwater Lake on the very good unpaved road (another 25 km). The park is known for lots of wildlife (lots of people see bears here), but of course we weren’t so lucky 
We did have a great drive as the scenery is again amazing, and esp. the road to Clearwater Lake was so beautiful. We walked to a few viewpoints like the Dawson Falls and Bailey’s Chute, rapids where we saw a few salmons try to jump upstream (still a bit early for the yearly salmon run though)! Most spectacular was of course the high Helmcken Falls. At the lake we had a hot chocolate and the best cranberry streusel cake after an Austrian family recipe 
Back at the campground we had lots of time left to relax and enjoy the beloved view over Dutch Lake. We also had supper at the great restaurant there, The Painted Turtle. Not the cheapest, but sooo good! Very original and tasty food and we sat outside on their patio overlooking the lake.
We continued on the hasty 1 until the exit to Herald Provincial Park. That road was small, windy and absolutely stunning (and it was dry for the time being)! After passing many cabins and the resort town of Sunnybrae, we arrived at the provincial park and our site (11) not far from the entrance. We wanted to explore the rest of the park but were so hungry that I first made some spaghetti and then we got so tired that we layed down for a nap first… to wake up after dark! That was the end of it…
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