Monday 29th May
The next main stop on our journey after Lake Louise was Kelowna. I’d initially marked this place in as it’s the location of a designer influencer I follow on Instagram and her description of her home town sounded so appealing that I’d thought a short stop here might be nice. However, since we’ve been in Canada, we have both fallen seriously in love with BC wines, especially Okanagan wines, and Kelowna is the main town in the Okanagan. It’s funny how things just work out! We’ve already booked our Okanagan wine tour for the one full day we have in Kelowna.
Our journey from Lake Louise to Kelowna involved an overnight in the small town of Revelstoke which boasted three craft breweries and we visited all three. I had changed accommodation at the last minute and was very glad to have done so. The alternate venue, The Coast Hillcrest Hotel, was out of town but once we saw the town we realised that was a plus! It had an on-site restaurant which had a balcony offering the most spectacular views out to snow-capped mountains which, one of the brewery staff told us, are often regarded as the best skiing peaks in Canada! Don’t be fooled though, this wasn’t some cheap out of the way place; it was quite expensive, all things considered.
The drive from Revelstoke to Kelowna was another experience of visual splendour as we wound our way initially along a river through a narrow valley with steep-sided pine covered mountains before eventually opening up to the broader Okanagan valley of lush, rolling pastureland and vineyards.
One area, Sicamous, where we stopped for breakfast, claimed to be the houseboat capital of Canada! The cafe here was the first one we’d seen to have an açai bowl since leaving Vancouver which was such a coincidence as I’d only just that morning been mentioning the lack of this breakfast option to my friend, Deborah!
We arrived at our apartment in Kelowna well in time for our midday check in. The apartment was huge and lovely and we were looking forward to having a BBQ for at least one of the two nights. The Master bedroom had a king bed and it opened up on to the balcony with views out over wetlands and the lake. The other great addition was a washing machine, as we’d been without one for the last 4 nights, so Brett won’t be at all surprised that one of the first things we did was a load of washing!
It was 2 pm before we ventured out and headed to the downtown area. Our apartment block was located near to the lake and there was a lovely lakefront pathway that led into downtown. The area of Kelowna that we saw was very clean, modern and well laid out with a relatively low-rise skyline, except for a few new condo-type buildings, and had a relaxed vibe that seemed to mesh with the waterfront / marina location. We found a place to buy supplies for dinner and then Mark headed back to go on a bike ride whilst I explored a bit more of downtown. It was pretty hot though so I soon ended up in the cool of the Cactus Club Cafe for lunch for a while before heading back to the apartment.
Mark made it back from his bike ride and we turned around and headed out to a local winery just after 5 pm. Sandhill Wines was just an 11 min walk away so seemed like an easy thing to do before our BBQ dinner at home. It was surprising to see how just one block back from the prestige of the waterfront we found ourselves in a light-industrial zone. This was where the Sandhill tasting rooms were located but their vineyards are to be found all across the Okanagan. We both tasted a flight of 4 wines and enjoyed them all. More interesting though was our host informing us that vineyards, and wine, was brought to the area initially by Italian priests for their altar wine. This is a story I will try to have confirmed on the winery tour we are taking tomorrow afternoon.
It was then back to the apartment for our first night of dining-in in what seemed ages! We were having a BBQ on our balcony overlooking Okanagan Lake.
Tuesday 30th May
It was another glorious morning and we couldn’t believe how lucky we’d been with the weather. Mark set off for a long gravel bike ride and I went for a lake-front promenade walk followed by some yoga before our half day afternoon winery tour of the Okanagan region.
Mark made it home safely from his bike ride and so we can set out again after our breakfast to source a coffee. We then still had a couple of hours to kill before our 12.45 pm tour pick up so thought we’d try to find a Barber for Mark. His hat was currently hiding a hot mess. It’s at this point I want to give a word of praise and thanks for Google maps: it is truly a most wonderful and valuable service. We had no idea there was a whole area of new and trendy shops, craft breweries, cafes and, also, a barber shop just two blocks over from the cafe where we were currently seated. Mark trudged along begrudgingly, not believing a barber shop would appear but, sure enough and thanks to Google, Man Made Barber came into view and, even better still, one of the four barbers was free and could fit Mark in straight away. This area of Kelowna used to be the fruit packing district and, in typical urban renewal form, old warehouses have been repurposed and there are new developments popping up in between. The whole area has a buzz of excited optimism about what is to come which was rather encouraging. Everything seemed so new and clean, even all the footpaths! We had heard, back on our tour in Whistler from a resident of this area, that Kelowna is the fastest growing city in BC and everything we’d seen so far would support that.
We walked back to the apartment, after the barber trip, to wait for our 12.45 pm tour pick up, all the time marveling at how clean and tidy the streets were. All the public space lawns were neatly mowed and the verges edged and there had not been any sign of dog poo or street litter anywhere. They would most certainly win a tidy town award and I can only congratulate the local Council for their superb efforts. One thing we have realized on our short stay here is that two nights was not nearly enough time to get all there was on offer out of Kelowna. It is a very walkable city, being nice and flat, but you do have to walk as everything is so spaced out; that is not a criticism, just a fact and a rather pleasant one as this level geography, as well as the waterfront aspect, contributes to the relaxed easy going vibe the place exudes. To be fair, I had initially slated 3 nights here but cut it down to 2 when someone complained. I won’t name them of course but you all know who I mean.
Our afternoon vineyard tour was with Red Dog Wine Tours and our driver for the day was Brad. The other guests with us on tour were Matt and Ruth, from the UK, Janice and Dwayne, from Winnipeg, and Chris and Tina from Hamburg. It was a lovely diverse group and we had fun chatting over our various wines throughout the afternoon about all things to do with, travel, wine, Brexit, Royal Family, Cannabis, homelessness and retirement. We visited four wineries however none of them seemed to deliver the consistently good wines we’d found when dining out on this trip. The wineries were: Quails Gate, Hatch, My Boucherie and Frind. My personal favorite was Hatch and I would go back there if I was ever again in the area. It was 7 pm by the time we got back so we just collapsed on the couch on the balcony to enjoy the sunset before bed.
We depart Kelowna in the morning and head back to Vancouver to return the car and have an overnight at a hotel before an early morning flight out to Boston so I may be quiet until we reach our next destination: Plymouth.
