Today, our min aim is driving from Clearwater to Kamloops. During this Canadian Road Trip, we have had temperatures just over freezing. Cloudy skies and clear skies. Over the next few days we are expecting heavy rain and almost 30 degree heat. It only seems right then that today we should wake up to thick fog.
Perhaps there is something in this global warming thing playing havoc with the weather, or maybe it is because we are moving from region to region on a daily basis.
I am going to go for the region to region theory so I don’t feel bad next time I fill the tank with gas (petrol).
Driving from Clearwater to Kamloops
We are now pounding along highway 5 to Kamloops. A city that will turn out to be far larger than we expected.
The snow capped mountains are fast becoming a thing of history for us. Even the rich, green, tree covered mountains seemed to be giving way for a yellow, burnt looking long grass.
We have seen plenty of black, charred looking twigs that presumably used to be trees in a former life. The after affects of forest fires that have taken hold in this region in the not too distant past.
But, we were now enjoying the warm sun beating down on the car, ensuring the local flies flourished and the air con got a good workout.
Today saw us take a mode of transport we hadn’t experienced before. A reactive ferry. Using nothing but ropes and the current to cross a river.
Perhaps using this green mode of transport will offset the fuel and air con use. But I doubt it. While we were waiting for the one man operator to return from lunch, we got talking to a local Hay Farmer, who tells us this particular one, the McLure Ferry had its first crossing in 1896, over 120 years ago.
The rest of the drive was uneventful, other than the quiet farm roads, still fine scenery, and how the inhabitants of a house in the middle of a field with nothing of note around them for 30 miles actually survives.
Kamloops. We arrive with the expectation of a smallish town, a few motels, with a few places to eat and a further few places to buy groceries.
What we get is actually vastly different. A busy town centre, a more than adequate park, and just outside of the centre where our hotel is, we find strip mall after strip mall, with restaurants and petrol stations splattered in the middle of their car parks.
Busy, confusing and maybe even a little ugly, but convenient. We purchase milk for Max and utilise one of the splattered restaurants for a very tasty dinner.
It was then off to our Comfort Inn. Smarter, newer, and an infinitively better smell when entering the room than our last one. But, and there is always a but, the thin windows results in hearing the constant drone of the traffic on the main road.
If you are the sort of person that likes to be gently rocked off to sleep by the sound of the 18 wheelers passing by, then make sure you get a room overlooking the main road, and request the one that we had.
You don’t need the room number, just ask for the one with cling film as the window glass!
UntilI write again….Richard, Suzanne and Max
Distance covered today – 140km
Total driven so far 1,131km
1 thought on “Canada 2017 – Day 7 – Driving from Clearwater to Kamloops”
Comments are closed.