Month: September 2025

We left camp on Wednesday morning ( Sept. 3), headed for the village of Nakusp. Our plan is to get to two more hot springs in that area. We’re starting to see more haze from smoke in the air. It means we don’t get such nice pictures as earlier in the trip. This drive included a ferry across the Lower Arrow Lake.

The ferry ride is only about 5 minutes and runs on a cable back and forth between sides.

Our campsite is in the Nakusp Municipal Park for the next three nights. It’s a nice shady site, but we won’t get much sun to charge our solar.

Wednesday night we headed to the first hot spring – Nakusp. It is definitely small but water temps were good and it wasn’t busy.

The next day, Paul headed out to scout some trails on his bike. Despite the literature we had, the trails were only suitable for mountain biking. We enjoyed some quiet time outside. That night we headed to Halcyon Hot Springs. It is much larger than Nakusp, but still not busy and the pools had good water temps.

On our last day in Nakusp, we ate homemade pizza sitting around a campfire. It was a nice evening to be outside. We haven’t had a lot of opportunities for campfires due to fire bans, so it was nice to enjoy it when we could.

On Saturday, it was time to move to our next location. It was still hazy from smoke as we made our way to Christina Lake.

More to come as we arrive at Gladstone Provincial Park.

Our trip Friday was relatively short to our next campground so we had a leisurely morning before packing up and leaving Harvelle House. The drive up the west side of Okanagan Lake was pretty, but once we got to Kelowna, we couldn’t believe the traffic. Of course, it was Friday afternoon of Labour Day, but…

Our campground is on a farm on the northeast side of Kelowna. They have a 13 acre farm with 9 full service campsites set between a lot of black walnut trees.

The owners have leased the main farm land to a young couple to garden and just harvest the walnut trees and look after the flower garden along with the campground. It was a nice peaceful area.

Saturday we drove for about 45 min, much of it on a washboard gravel road, to Myra Station to ride another section of the Kettle Valley Rail Trail. This one has 2 tunnels and 18 trestles and a gorgeous view of Myra Canyon. The trail is well used and good, packed surface. It is nice and wide and there were lots of people biking and hiking on the long weekend. They also rent bicycles at the parking lot.

The best end to ride or walk from is Myra Station. Within 3-4 km., you can pass 1 tunnel and 9 trestles. We went almost end to end – 23 km. round trip. Following our ride, we stopped in town for some fruit and other groceries before heading back to the trailer. We were able to get some fresh corn for supper too.

Sunday was a rest day of biking for Joyce – Paul headed in to try another trail in town. This one was paved all the way. Part of the Okanagan Rail Trail, he started where it crossed Dilworth Dr. and rode northeast to the airport where he turned around. There are so many options of places to bicycle in Kelowna. Many are separate trails, some are a biking lane as part of a road.

On Monday, we headed north of town to the south end of Wood Lake. We parked at Woodsdale and rode north. It was a level and packed trail in great condition. We rode lakeside along the east side of the lake until the end when it crossed over to the other side and carried along the west side of the next lake, Kalamalka Lake. We rode a few more kilometres along that lake before we turned around to head back to the truck.

There was a small beach area between the two lakes where lots of people were swimming in Wood Lake, the smaller and warmer lake of the two. Unfortunately, our bathing suits were back at the trailer.

After our bike ride, we drove down into Kelowna to see a bit more of the town before heading back to the trailer for supper.

Tuesday, we did another load of wash and then Paul headed out to go check out a tool store in town. It was a day to catch up on blogs and relax before we leave for Nakusp and back to hot springs tomorrow.