Mission to Kamloops

To continue the story across the land. After camping in Kilby, we continued our trek on towards Hope. The road continued through the Fraser valley which ends near Hope, which is surrounded by mountains. Hope is the chainsaw carving capital of Canada. We bought some food there and had lunch in town. On the way out we saw a big group of cyclists escorted by police biking from Kelowna to Vancouver to race money for charity. That's a good 500 km in one day, and they were still going faster than us! After hope we headed up the Fraser river towards what is known as the Canyon route as the river flows well below the highway. We stayed just past a small little town called Yale. There was a small hill right by the highway high enough that no one could see us that we camped on. Interestingly enough there was a little picnic table on top of this hill. We didn't want to haul our bikes up so we left them the other side of the highway concrete wall out of sight of cars. It was an interesting sleep between the highway, railway and the Fraser River. But as would turn out these three would follow us closely on our way through BC.

Next day we began riding up the Canyon and went through 5 tunnels between Yale and Boston Bar. There is only a small sidewalk on the left side of the tunnel to bike on. The sidewalk is very narrow so it's a pretty sketchy ride. Most of the tunnels were short enough that it wasn't too bad except for the last one. You couldn't see the end once you got in and Mike got a strawberry flung at him in the tunnel. Pretty dirty trick. On the other side, Pat also discovered that he had a tick in his side. That wasn't related to the tunnels. Some interesting stopping points where the Elvis rocks the canyon Cafe, with an insane amount of Elvis memorabilia. We filled up on water here. We also stopped at the tourist trap that is Hell's Gate. This is a narrow part of the Fraser River that they claim has a greater volume of water pass through it than Niagara Falls. To get down you have to pay for a gondola ride down (the steepest gondola in the world, at 45% incline). At the bottom we wandered around and tried not to spend more money. The only thing I couldn't resist trying was "Simon Fraser" fudge, that excused the shitty touristiness of Hell's gate. The whole day the road slowly rose high above the River. We stopped for Dinner at a Chinese restaurant just before Lytton that was recommended by a truck driver in Kilby. It was a good deal and the waitress was very chatty, she spent the entire meal talking (us mainly listening) about her son and her worries for his future education. Not that I'm complaining, it was enjoyable and she was one of the more down to earth characters we met. I forgot to mention that we stopped in Spuzzum a two house town that claimed to have market. The market ended up being two old hippies selling flowers and cookies out of their trailier. We had another good talk with them, mostly about international issues, they kept up to date with the news pretty well. Their cookies were also tastey. That night we stayed on top of another hill... between the highway, railway and river just before Lytton. It was a slow but entertaining day.

Our next day we made the short ride into Lytton to stock up on food and then continued up the canyon. At this point the scenery changes dramatically and everything dries up. The hills get strange colours with very few trees and mostly rock. One of the hottest days of the trip for sure. We also decided to attempt to break the 100 km mark for hte first time on the trip. We stopped half way at Spences bridge for lunch in the blazing heat. This is where we started the tactic of soaking our shirts in water to keep cool and hydrated. Just past Spences bridge is where the "western style" picture was taken that I posted earlier. Eventually we made it into Cache Creek, which is where the turn off for Kamloops is. We loaded up on food and some beer to keep the heat in check. Our camp spot was at an RV park just outside of town. I also got the chance to test out opening a beer with my iron ring for the first time. Works pretty well, but you have to do it quick to not kill your finger. The 100 km mark was passed.

We started off the next day with 4 eggs each for breakfast. It's actually not that much. There was a good tail wind and so we kept a quick pace. This along with the heat tired us out pretty fast and we ended up taking some long breaks. Also ran into a few other cyclists going the other way. Eventually we stopped in Savone in a diner for lunch. Aka, we made our own lunch and bought some stuff to not feel guilty. The rest of the ride was pretty hilly into Kamloops. Once we got there we met up with Pat's friend Savannah. Her dad picked us up and drove us to their place. It's another sweet town between mountains. We had a huge dinner there, watched a movie, and passed out.

Cheers for now.