West Kelowna

Wed 12 Oct: Had an unexpected but very pleasant turn to the day today. Firstly, drove to Vernom, but after searching on-line it appeared they did not have a visitor centre so carried on to Kelowna. What a beautiful city nestled in between mountains and a lake running down the middle - certainly has a nice feel to it. Found the visitor centre, and got maps etc. Decided to do the 5.57 km trail up Mt Boucherie, an extinct volcano in West Kelowna. It was a pleasant trail with gentle switchbacks climbing up, offering great views over the lake and town. After admiring the views at the top, we ended up talking to a couple of guys flying a drone. The owner put the drone up and let us view with his goggles - it was quite an experience. Anyway we carry on talking and conversation turned to wines. This is the main wine region of BC. He suggested we visited the Crown and Thieves winery down the road. They were heading there themselves when they were finished. We ended getting down around the same time, so decided to follow them to the winery. We introduced ourselves, Steve, a retired fireman, is a local residence, but spends most of his time traveling and taking photos and has a website "The Wandering Fireman", and his mate Aaron, an airplane engineer, who was visiting from Ontario. Anyway since Steve was a member and we were friends, we got to do 6 wine tasting for free. The winery was only a year and half old but what a magnificent building and the location overlooking the lake was so beautiful. The young sommelier, was very knowledge and friendly. It was a very enjoyable afternoon, and all the wines we tried were delicious, I could even be tempted to become a red drinker, apart from the price of it. We ended up purchasing a bottle each of the 2 whites we tried, and will look forward to drinking those on our travels. I'm a bit worried how we are going to get past all the wineries as we head south down the valley. Decided to head to the start of the Kettle Valley Rail Trail, Myra Canyon Trestles section - 11 km down a FSR, which we will bike tomorrow, to spend the night. Steps V 10070Read more