Thursday, July 10, 2008

Osoyoos: The Journey (Part 1)

I'm back! And I finally found my camera amongst our piles of camping gear! I have tons of great photos so I'm going to break them down into a few separate posts. Apologies to those of you who aren't into camping - we're going again, at least once and probably twice, in the next few weeks, so this might be a monothemed blog for a while.

To start with: yes, we have desert in Canada! Here's how the landscape changes if you leave Vancouver and drive 400 km East. You'll notice that it also gets sunnier... although Vancouver is having some lovely weather at the moment.

Oh it looks like I can only upload 5 photos per post. This can be part 1.

East Van: a bit on the gritty side. But it's home.


Endless suburbs. With mountains to the North, the border to the South and the ocean to the West, the only way the city can expand is East. And up, in the downtown core. Gotta protect that mountain view though.


One of the fucking bridges major traffic bottlenecks triumphs of civil engineering that link Vancouver to the real world. I'm so glad I don't have to commute over a bridge.


Farmland. Great corn comes from Chilliwack! NB it is pronounced CHILL-uh-wack, and said really fast, not Chilly-WACK, as every British person will say at least once, to general ridicule from everyone else.


The first glimpse of the mountains, about an hour into the journey. This is usually around the time that I finally feel like we've left Vancouver.

10 comments:

  1. Camping posts!!! Bring 'em on! I may have a similar bent this summer although more towards hiking. :) I've been to Chilliwack but I can't remember if it was on my recent trip or not...sigh.

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  2. Yay for camping posts! I look forward to seeing more!

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  3. great!

    (You can post more than five photos but you wil have to do it in batches of 5. The last batch you upload will end up on top of the post, so there will be some cutting and pasting. But it's possible.)

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  4. wow.... brings back memories with those photos. I went to Osoyoos and the rest of the "valley" (peaches and orchards and wine!) 8 years ago. it was absolutely lovely!

    did you go on a "desert trail" where they let you walk and look for spiders and other scary things? Maybe that was only for the tourists?

    anyhow, looking forward seeing more photos!

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  5. The farmland looks gorgeous. Canada grows its own corn? I thought you all were forcefed Iowan corn same as us!! ;)

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  6. Wayfarer, the town itself is not that memorable... and I'm glad that you and Amanda and Hypoglycemia Girl are into the camping posts!

    HG, that's good to know, thanks! I've actually already got the 2nd and 3rd parts drafted and ready for editing and posting when I get home tonight, so I'll leave them as they are this time though.

    Chall, orchards and wine coming up in part 3! I didn't do the desert trail this time, although I have done it before. I've been to (or through) Osoyoos a few times now!

    Arduous, if you like this you will love part 3! The local corn is amazing, and eating anything else in the summer is a travesty. Even places like Safeway are full of the local corn in the summer, and various enterprising people bring it into town by the carful and sell it from the side of the road. Sooooo gooooood! I'm not actually sure what we get during the rest of the year, but we really only eat it when it's in season because it's so much sweeter and juicier!

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  7. Osoyoos ? I was there last time three years ago in August... only in Tempe AZ did I get closer to suffering a heat stroke. I recommend going there in October for the Okanagan wine festival instead (you drink alcohol, CAE, don't you ? LOL...)

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  8. It only got really truly hot on the last full day, and that was enough...

    The wine festival sounds great. I think some of the wineries also put on music and plays (Shakespeare, no less) in their grounds, complete with glasses of wine included in the entry fee. How very civilised.

    Of course I'm a complete teetotaller myself. I don't know how you got the impression that I drink that devil's brew ;)

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  9. That's right, a Brit drinking alcohol... what am I thinking... that would be like, of I don't know, an Italian drinking alcohol...

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  10. Or Brits and Italians (and fake Bolivians) arguing about football.

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