Unexpected Road Trip

What a Sunday! My son and friends were visiting The Okanagan and had planned on staying until Monday, but ….work called. Eamon was being sent up to The Yukon and had to be in Williams Lake poste haste! Eamon's friends had plans, so first thing Sunday morning we were off, a flying trip to Williams Lake and home about a 900 km distance, or 10 hours driving…..crazy, fun day! I took a few photos of the on the way. We started in the southern interior, a fertile valley on a 100 km long lake. The Okanagan Valley is a premier grape and tree fruit growing area and I love living here!We set off north east toward Kamloops, above, which is located where the fast flowing mighty Thompson River carves a canyon which widens into Tunkwa Lake (formerly and much more beautifully called Lake Tranquille). This is the start of serious dry high ridges.From Kamloops we continued north east toward Cache Creek. We passed Walachin , above and below, which is on a high prairie overlooking the Thompson River canyon. Walachin was settled in 1909 by the English who were led to believe this was a bountiful place. In fact it’s a dry belt and gets only 20 cm of rain per year. When the First World War broke out and the men went to Europe to fight, almost none of the settlers returned. There is a train on the left side of the photo, to give you some perspective.Now we reached Cache Creek the beginning of The Gold Rush Trail to the Klondike! Again this is on the Thompson River, but dry, dry, dry…. The river has carved remarkable hoodoos which show the iron in the rocks. We are now heading north toward 100 Mile House, 108 Mile House and 150 Mile House. Great names eh? These are all stopping points for those who trekked to the Klondike in search of gold. This is very high plateau country with very little top soil! We really did feel on top of the world as the sky was huge!There are some really lovely lakes and Lac La Hache is one of them. The fall colours were really starting to show, so pretty. As you can see from my photos, there aren't all that many old building between the towns, just a whole bunch of space....we really are a very new country and little remains of original settlements along the road.