Smithers, Prince George and Harrison Hot Springs We've had a overnight stay in the deserted Smithers and today we're heading for Prince George. But we wanted to at least experience a little bit of the beautiful Smithers scenery before we moved on.
Twin Falls Monday - Breakfast in Tim Horton's across the road from the hotel before we backtracked west for a few miles to the Twin Falls/Glacier Gulch Trail.There's a short trail to the Twin Falls view point, plus a much longer trail to the foot of the glacier. I'd have loved to have had a go at the longer trail, but there was no time for that sort of thing,. So we made do with the short walk to the Twin Falls view point. And here they are.
Waterfall From the view point the trail continued for another hundred metres or so almost to the base of the left hand waterfall. This picture was taken with my phone's Slow Shutter application to give the water a nice blurred look.
Driving Time to hit the road again. Again the traffic was light and the scenery was lovely.
Brewery After checkng in to our hotel, the Coast Inn of the North, we poped in to Tourist Information before heading for the Crossroads Brewery.
Iron Bridge Oatmeal Stout This is their Iron Bridge Oatmeal Stout, which was excellent.
Gnarly Bush Raspberry Wheat Ale And we both had a Gnarly Bush Raspberry Wheast Ale. We both also had one of the brewery's generously proportioned pizzas each and we were fit to burst by the time we'd finished.
Deserted On the waddle back to the hotel it was remarkable how completely deserted downtown Prince George was in the evening.
Sunset Back at the hotel there was a moderately nice sunset visible from our room, which was on the sixth/top floor and appeared to be one of the tallest buildings in town.Beers sampled today:- Prince George Crossroads Brewing Iron Bridge Oatmeal Stout (this was really nice)- Prince George Crossroads Brewing Gnarly Bush Raspberry Wheat
BC Railway Museum Tuesday - We were headed for the Cottonwood Island Nature Park when we discovered that the Railway Museum was actually open, even thought their website said they would be closed on this day.
BC Railway Museum The railway museum was AWESOME! It was very spacious, with loads and loads of locomotives and carriages, most of which you could go in.
BC Railway Museum
BC Railway Museum This was actually supposed to be a photo of the carpet of flowers in the foreground, which looked amazing to the eye, but the photos never seem to capture the colours very well.
Dressing Up Judith didn't really dress up like that. She's just got her face poking through one of those boards.
586 Model RS-10 Built in 1956.
6001 Russell Snow Plough Built in the early days of the railway in 1903, these apparently used to crash so regularly that they installed a second set of controls on the roof to give the operators a chance to try to jump clear of the unfolding disaster if things went a bit pear shaped?!!!
Kwinitsa Station Railway Museum The BC Railway Museum also had a building that was identical to the Kwinitsa Station Railway Museum we'd visited in Prince Rupert a few days ago. A museum within a museum!
BC Railway Museum Old trucks.
BC Railway Museum The same old trucks in black and white, which seems sort of appropriate given their state of decay.
Diner Car This must have been a great way to eat while you travel.
Lamb Cargate Beehive Burner Lumber companies used to use burners like this to incinderate the bits of trees they didn't want/need before they realised that they could use all of the bits of a tree if they put their minds to it.
Lamb Cargate Beehive Burner It's got a massive fan in the top to improve air flow and used to burn so hot that it could achive "complete combustion", which I assume means that there wasn't even any ash left at the end!
Steam Train The only steam train in the collection, with a more modern snow plough in the background.Anyway, as you can see from the number of photos I took at the railway museum, we had a very entertaining time in there. And we're not even particularly interested in trains!
Cottonwood Island Nature Park It turned out that the Cottonwood Island Nature Park was so close to the railway museum that we didn't even need to move the car. Here's Judith entering the park over their new bridge.We were a bit concerned by all of the signs warning us that there are usually bears in there, but not as concerned as we were about the number of mosquitos. We had bug spray with us so we managed to avoid any bites, but constantly brushing them off your arms and legs became tiresome so we retired to the car to head back to town.
Northern Lights Estate Winery On the way back to town we spotted the Northern Lights Estate Winery across the river so headed for that. It was a beautifully presented place and looked to have a really nice restaurant. Unfortunately it was only a few hours since we'd had breakfast, so we didn't think we could manage a meal. But Judith had a go on their wine tasting experience (I abstained as I was driving).
Connaught Hill We dropped the car off at the hotel and went out for a walk. First we walked up Connaught Hill. Here's Judith walking up Connaught Hill.
Connaught Hill Considering that from the bottom it looks like a small hill covered in trees, it turned out there was a lovely park with some great views at the top.We then walked to the Lheidli T'enneh Memorial Park, which turned out to be further away than I was expecting. It was quite pleasant, but somehow I neglected to take any photos there.
Brewery Then we went back to the brewery for dinner as we'd had such a good time yesterday (although this time we were careful not to stuff ourselves to bursting point).
Rainbow I dropped Judith off at the hotel and headed off to try to get a photo of the Grand Trunk Bridge, which was a couple of miles from the hotel. I saw this rainbow on the way there.
Grand Trunk Bridge The Grand Trunk Bridge turned out to be harder to photograph than I was expecting. The riverbank was covered with a thick, dense layer of trees, right down to the waterline and it turned out that there was only one muddy, mosquito ridden spot with a clear view. I'd not brought any bug spray because I was only going to photograph a bridge, so I picked up half a dozen or so bites getting my photos. Doh!
Grand Trunk Bridge Beers sampled today (not as bad as it looks as I had a taster pack in the brewery, which is 4x small beers):- Prince George Crossroads Brewing Old Westie Amber Lager- Prince George Crossroads Brewing Cloud 9 Belgian Wit- Prince George Crossroads Brewing George Street Brown Ale- Prince George Crossroads Brewing Cinder's Red Rye- Prince George Crossroads Brewing Fast Lane IPA- Tofino Brewing Blonde Ale
Driving Wednesday - Up and out of the hotel early (swift breakfast in McDonald's) for the 414 mile drive to Harrison Hot Springs.Whilst the scenery was pretty, there didn't seem to be much to do along the way, which was probably just as well as we didn't really have the time to stop.Lots of the road was four lanes and many of the bits that were only two lanes were being widened, but I have no idea why as there was hardly any traffic.
Frazer River Valley Approaching the Frazer River Valley (I think).
River View There's a railway line on each side of the river because two companies wanted to build a railway line, so they built one each!
Tiguan A rare appearance by our VW Tiguan.
Hell's Gate After about 350 miles we reached Hell's Gate, which was definitely worth a stop. This is where the river narrows dramatically because one of the teams building one of the railway lines caused a landslide that largely blocked the valley. At this point the river is over 150 feet deep!You get a cablecar from the top, where I'm taking the photo, down to the river level.
Air Tram (as they call it) With the suspension bridge in the background.
Fishways The landslide made the river impassable to spawning salmon. Feeling guilty about this, they build a series of "fishways" to allow the salmon to get past this narrow bit of the river. This diagram shows how it's all laid out. Looking at the ferocity of the river, I would have loved to see how they actually managed to build that.
Hell's Gate Just to prove we were there.
Bridge I had a walk across the bridge.
Bridge Judith didn't fancy it given that you could see through the floor to the raging water a hundred feet below.
Bridge Upstream View
Bridge Downstream View
Chair That's a normal sized chair! Judith's so tiny!!
Air Tram That's not the real air tram. That's just me with my face sticking through another one of those paintings.It was so hot we had one of the most massive icecreams I've ever eaten. And it wasn't even the biggest one they sold! It was a race against time to eat it before it succumbed to the heat.
Othello Tunnels Anyway, having had a brilliant time at Hell's Gate, we drove another 50 miles or so to the Othello Tunnels. There used to be a railway line through here, but now it's just a tourist attraction.
Othello Tunnels The river flows in a series to tight "S" bends and some bright spark had the bright idea of building a railway line through a series of tunnels right up the middle of it. You can easily see why at the time most people thought it was an impossible task.
Inside I was quite impressed at how well this handheld shot inside one of the tunnels came out. Camera are very clever these days.
Othello Tunnels Judith on one of the bridges between tunnels.Apparently the passenger trains used to go through this bit at night while it was dark as it freaked people out going through in the daylight.
Horrison Hot Springs Hotel View We finally made it to our hotel, The Harrison Hot Springs Resort and Spa, which was by a very significant margin the busiest hotel we'd stayed in on the entire trip. The car park was so busy we had to park in the staff car park.However, there was a pleasant view from our balcony.
Settlers We had a walk along the waterfront looking for somewhere to have dinner, but everywhere was very busy. So we headed a bit further "inland" to the Settlers pub. There were quite a few people on their pretty deck, but there was no-one inside at all. Given that it was boiling hot outside we were more than happy to stay indoors.I had a magnificent chorizo linguini pasta and this blackberry porter was also most excellent.
Settlers The sign on the door on the way out of Settlers. Having been so many places and seen so much over the last couple of weeks, it was a bit of a relief to be somewhere that nothing happened.Beers sampled today:- Thornless Blackberry Porter (this was really nice)
Miami Bridges Thursday - The river that runs through Harrison Hot Springs is called the Miami and behind the hotel is a short trail called the Miami Bridges Trail. Quite pleasant.
Sandy Cove Trail Also very close to the hotel was the Sandy Cove Trail. The local guide listed it as "moderate" and the Vancouver Trails website listed it as "easy". I would describe the first 300 metres of it as "a bit bonkers" as it zig zags up the hillside in a distinctly not easy fashion.
Sandy Cove or Whippoorwill Point Whilst I headed for Whippoorwill Point, every other person on the trail headed for Sandy Cove. Perhaps they'd all been here before and already knew that the trail to Whippoorwill Point was a bit of a pain and had little to see.
Lakeside After finishing the Sandy Cove Trail I decided to have a crack at the Campbell River Trail (also known locally as the Harrison grind), an 880m (about 2,900 feet) ascent starting on the edge of town. After about half an hour it became apparent that I was going to be the only person on the trail. Also parts of the trail were so heavily overgrown with ferns that I was concerned that I might actually step on a bear that had not seen me coming. That combined with the fact that it was now the middle of the afternoon and getting really, really hot out cracked my resolve and I headed back to the hotel.Having located Judith (sat on our balcony reading), we decided to go for a leisurely walk along the lakeside.
Inflatable Island That looked like it might have been an entertaining jape, but it was almost exclusively populated by children screaming at each other in that way that children like to do.
Lagoon Harrison Lake is on the left and the little lake that they've made for people to swim in is on the right.
Lakeside Turning slightly further to my right, there's a nice view of the apartment buildings along the lakeside.
Paddling Those little dogs looked like they were having a jolly good time. I've hidden the identity of the lady as she didn't ask to be in my photo.
Canada Geese Loads of Canada Geese seem to live here. What a coincidence.
Boats Loads of people here have boats. It was very entertaining watching them launchine their boats from trailers pulled by massive pickup trucks. It would be worth having a boat just so you had a reason for having a massive pickup truck.
"Tony Hart" moment Actually there were loads of "Tony Hart" moments going on pretty much all day.
Poutine Having had a very relaxing walk along the waterfront, we retired to our hotel for a light dinner. Given that this would be my last dinner in Canada (on this holiday, hopefully not forever!), it was a no-brainer to have poutine. And it was jolly good poutine too.We also snuck back to Settlers for a swift beer in there before bed (and it was much busier than yesterday).Beers sampled today:- Old Yale Brewing Sasquatch Stout
Room View Friday - Just time for a last look at the view from out balcony before we checked out of the hotel and headed for Vancouver. It was a bit overcast, but already quite warm out.
Dickens Sweet Shop and British Museum If you're near Vancouver, go here. It's amazing. Essentially it's a sweet shop and tearoom, but they're both hidden inside a rambling collection of British related stuff and things. Room after room after room of it. And it's all fascinating.
Cars In one room we even found a few cars!
Fawlty Towers And in another room there's a TV playing Fawlty Towers. I could have sat and watched that all day. What a brilliant, brilliant place. Lovely friendly staff too.
Westminster Abbey Our next stop was a place called Westminster Abbey, which had a sign at the entrance to their extensive grounds saying "Visitors welcome", but when we went in everything was locked up and there were no-one about. So I took this photo and we left again.Our next stop was also a bit of a bust as we went to the nearby Mission Raceway. They were hosting a big drag racing meeting over the weekend so I hoped there might be some activity on Friday. Nope. Doh!
Stave Falls Dam and Powerhouse Our final stop was the Stave Falls Dam and Powerhouse and fortunately this was a) open and b) excellent.This is the top bit of an electrcity pylon. We take them for granted because they're so common, but they're impressively huge when you get to stand right next to one.
Stave Falls Dam and Powerhouse The powerstation was completed in 1912 and continued to generate electricity until the year 2000, when it was replaced by a newer facility built right next to it. Now it's just a really interesting museum.
Generator Room There are five turbines (although you can only see four of them in this photo) and two exciters (that are used to power up the turbines) in this room.
Pipes This is what remains of the pipework that fed water to the turbines. From the right, there are two smaller pipes to feed the exciters (because they're only needed to get the main generators started), then four larger pipes for the original four generators, and finally the remains of a fifth large pipe running across the top to power the fifth generator that was added later.Peak water flow was an impressive 3,500,000 litres (about 770,000 UK gallons) a second!
1912 Detroit Electric Car This 106 year old electric car had a range of 100 miles. The original batteries lasted 70 years! That makes me think we've not come as far with modern electric cars as we might like to think we have.
Miscellaneous Powerstation View We really enjoyed our visit to the Stave Falls Dam and Powerhouse.
Airport We arrived quite early at the airport so popped into a bar to wait for "bag drop" (as it's now called) to open.
Lounge Handily BA have a First Class lounge at Vancouver airport. We were the first ones to arrive.
Plane Unlike our plane, which was 35 minutes late. Ordinarily this would be slightly annoying, but in this instance it just gave us a bit more time to relax in the First Class Lounge.We got a new view of it landing from the lounge.
Last Beer! There was some complimentary beer so it seemed rude not to try it, even though I was feeling very thoroughly beered out by this point.
On the Plane Here's Judith in her pod, making the most of what will likely be our last flight in First Class :o(
UK The UK had been having a heatwave pretty much since the day we'd left so our green and pleasant land was looking rather brown and scorchio as we headed for Heathrow.Beers sampled today:- Deep Cove Sentinel IPA (at the airport)- Steam Works Brewing Flagship IPA (in the First Class lounge)
The End And that was it. The end of the longest holiday we've ever had. We had a brilliant time and ticked a lot of destinations off our places to visit list.Finally, an honourable mention to our trusty ride for the journey. We drove 3,210km (1,995 miles) and our petrol powered VW Tiguan returned an impressive 43.4mpg. It was soulless and as dull as dishwater, but perfectly suited to the journey. But I'd still rather have had a Mustang Convertible or similar.