Round The World and other travels
A frequent flyer's collection of trip diaries
This is: Canada & Hawaii 2016
Columbia pictures
I repeated the previous day's routine of having breakfast at the hotel's Starbucks concession, then set out around 10am for what I hoped might be the 'highlight day' of this BC road trip. After filling up the car, I began by retracing the previous day's route to Vernon. My destination was Revelstoke, and it would have been possible to keep going on Highway 97, then take routes 97A and 1 to reach my objective in two-and-a-half hours. But that would have shown a lack of imagination. On reaching Vernon, I instead picked up Route 6, which in conjunction with Route 23 later on in the day, would deliver me to my destination by a less travelled and hopefully highly scenic road. As an additional bonus, I would make two short ferry crossings of the Arrow Lakes.
I
made a brief photo stop at Lumby and quickly pressed on towards the
Needles-Fauquier cable ferry across Lower Arrow Lake. These lakes
need a little bit of explanation. First, they're really just
unusually wide sections of the Columbia River, and secondly,
nowadays there's only one lake. Although the two names live on, the
Upper Arrow Lake and Lower Arrow Lake merged following construction
of the Keenleyside Dam in the 1960s. I was intrigued and delighted
to discover that my ferry journey was completely free of charge.
This did seem to make sense as the highway actually crosses to the
other side of the lake at this point, and there's nowhere else to go
apart from doing a U-turn and going back the way you came to arrive
at the ferry.
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Once on the eastern shore of the Arrow Lakes, I let the other traffic from the ferry get in front of me and then enjoyed having the road to myself for the drive up to Nakusp. Nothing was going to appear in my rear-view mirror until the ferry made a round trip and once again lowered its ramp on the eastern jetty. I made photo stops at will.
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LEFT: Okay, the road may be empty, but that was a bit naughty! |
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| RIGHT: This is the preferred technique |
Soon enough, I came to the neat and delightful little town of Nakusp, where I stopped for a light lunch and had a leisurely walk around, taking in the views and soaking up some of the glorious sunshine.
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Route 6, which had served me well since Vernon, went off eastwards and southwards at this point, to eventually arrive at the US Border north of Spokane, Washington. I therefore left Nakusp on Route 23 and in due course re-crossed the Arrow Lakes by conventional ferry, from Galena Bay to Shelter Bay. Once again, this was free of charge.
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It was then an easy 40-minute run northwards to the Trans-Canada Highway and Revelstoke, my next night stop, where I quickly settled into the very impressive Best Western Plus hotel.
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In due course, I took the complimentary shuttle bus to the hotel's sister property, The Regent, in the downtown area. I enjoyed an excellent evening meal there, once again returning to base on the shuttle.
As hoped for, it had turned out to be an absolutely fabulous
day of scenic sightseeing!
