Day 35 Sun-Salt Bush to Flowing Waters!

Awake at 4.30 am…new time zone is messing with my head….After being so tried last night I had to do all the blog this morning good thing I woke early…Takes a good 1 1/2 - 2 hrs to get done…
Our Unit at the Uni was fine…comfortable and cool enough plus late night and early morning views were worth being here…Tim’s views are much lower closer to the River…

We are in Squamish now, made it at 5 pmsih after a day of sightseeing so many sights from arid areas like Alice in many ways…especially the grass looked like spinifex and with all the salt bush which they call Sage bush it had a very Similar feel about it as a Alice Springs….except there was water everywhere….the massive Silt Cliff’s as they are called rise above both sides of the river which is the South Thompson River in some ways with out the colours if Rainbow Valley in the Northern Territory in Aust looks a little similar…but this is massive scale along 100’s of Ks along the River and away from the River the craggy Arid landscape… then amongst it all will be green, green crops which are irrigated but on the op side of the road is this arid dessert look…such a weird look it messes with your head, trying to figure it all our….

Our first stop was at a Lookout just out Kamloops at a place called balancing Rock and Hoodoos…just below it was this massive torrent of a river swiftly flowing and on the land above it just below where we were looking in amongst this dessert look was a huge goofy course…green, green ,green…a,so noted as we drive from Kamloops the amount of satellite suburbs just sitting in he middle of nowhere these massive huge fancy homes. No services just houses some perched on the edge of cliffs overlooking this huge river system metres below…honestly it really is the weirdest looking area you would nearly think we are on Mars it looks so foreign….

We started to notice we were definitely in Indian territory with homes with dozen’s of old cars around them….in fact it was quite funny you could nearly see every year a new car came out the old one would be parked up and a new one bought…some yards had up to 20 cars sitting around.,,reminded me of home going to the Aboriginal communities similar feel….
We spotted Dead Man’s Junction Ranch which had a mini sized Wild West Town….we only drive through it but my goodness was it done well….

Next stop was a very yep outback looking town called Cache Creek for coffee and ham and cheese grilled sandwich…felt a little weird as we walked in you could feel all eyes 👀 on us….

Not much further up the road was a place Hat Creek Range which had about 20 sports cars…lined up at the front of it would loved to have stopped and had a look…must have been a big convey of sports cars from a club…. It was here we turned off to head towards Whistler… The scenery literally changed from arid, to green and lush…..massive Rock 🪨 Mountains, we were going trough a very narrow valley…so pretty….
Jess had suggested we stop at Joffre Lakes to see a waterfall…well as we come closer to the parking area there were 100’s of cars all parked up…as we drive in heaps of Park Rangers about…we drive through a rugged horrible car park and actually found a park close to the opening…we got out to check out the info on it…heaps of people just walk through without getting checked by the rangers… so we did the right thing and asked…only to be told we can’t go as their numbers for today were at capacity…WHAT with beaks just going through no checks…we’ll blow them…John was very kind and patient thanking them…I was a bit peeved we could have just walk straight to the first lake and no one would have known…anyway we drive away like good students 😩😩😩…

So we took off up the road with the scenery getting better and better…the most gorgeous blue lakes was running along the Hwy…stopping at Marble Canyon provincial park, there was a water fall on the other side of the Lake river whatever it was…so relaxing….it was a camping spot as well with a Ranger sorting out sites…it wasn’t a very big area but pretty little spot… as we drove on the colour of the water become prettier and a prettier blue lake….no where to stop sadly and was in John’s side so couldn’t capture this one…Honestly landscape kept changing from one scene to another…all touching all our senses…all beautiful, all different all so min blowing…As we moved into the valley more and more Snow capped peaks were peaking over the top of the other Rocky Mountains…

After this pretty valley the landscape opened up again to a more arid look again, weird hey, sure was…it was here we stopped to look at the raging Fraser which was kilometre below us…Raging away in torrent’s below through the silted craggy rock structure below…a sight to behold that’s for sure……we stopped at the River Railway tunnel view point for all of this…then it was here John sighted the Glass Carriages train…that people pay $$$$$ to go on…we laughed saying we seeing the same as them without the $$$$$ mind you some spots we saw where the train went it would have been a magical trip,on that train…plus in comfort…

Bridges over the passing more Indian reservation areas with more and more cars 😂😂😂😂 it did look funny, so many cars…plus for some friends of mine I went to school, with who do up old cars this would be a gold field for them with so many old cars tucked away in yards…some years and years old….

Just as we were doing to a town above the Fraser River was a viewpoint Lilliooet View point with below were some old rail bridges and the raging river blow that…some of the small towns you could see on the cliffs overlooking this massive river..what crazy sights we have seen today..so different to the east coast which yes has lots of lakes but the scenery is very similar this is constantly changing to overall all the senses…
From here we turned onto the Whistler turn off…. The road constantly running beside this huge, huge river system of mint green water…waterfalls flowing out of the mountains above…we stopped to pull up looked at Duffy Lake what a bad spot to see an amazing view…cars piled into a tiny spot about 15 motorbikes drive in as well..John had to park in a very dangerous spot so I had to be very quick to get these pics…you could see peoples disapproval of where we parked but they didn’t allow it to be any better for the way they had all parked… crazy only a little up the road was another parking bay..bigger and not a soul there and the scene maybe not as good as the last one was still worth a stop….

We passed the Fort Berenes Estate winery..saying we bet Tim and Jess stop there and yep they did having lunch there…

Next Stop on Duffy Lake road to view the raging torrent of a river racing by the Hwy…it was never ending seem to go on and on forever…
By now we getting very hungry s we stopped before Whistler at a place called Pemberton at a restaurant called Town Square a very cute little town…nice lunch had the best cocktail yet…A Royal ??? With Aida water, mint, lemon juice and hibiscus essence it was lavender in colour and of course Gin tasted amazing very tasty…quite relaxed after that …

On we headed to Whistler and very dissatisfied with all it hype…we couldn’t get a park close to the main downtown there were massive larking areas away from the main centre…we didn’t have time to do that we were just doing a drive through..but with trees abounding you couldn’t see anything…so all in all we really didn’t get a true feel for Whistler….
Our last stop was at Brandywine Falls Provincial park where we managed to do a quick 15 min walk to some really good falls…it was worth us stopping and the only reason we stopped was I needed a loo…so worth the loo stop…It was getting very late now we saw heaps more waterfall signs…just didn’t have time and turned into a them…Snow called mountains were around us again..more and more people… welcome back to crazy people areas….
We made our way to The hotel, which looked hmmmmm…..inside it was ok and we had a little aircon in our room…when Tim andJess arrived they discovered they didn’t have an air in and today if all,days had turned really hot….mid 30’s compared to high teens…so we were all,struggling…but as I guess he couldn’t stay here…so they gave him back his money very lucky there and they set off to stay closer to Vancouver….
We relaxed the had Dinner at Salt and Vine below our room…It was a upper class tree restaurant, with a very limited menu…took us awhile to decided as not a lot to chose from…but what did come was extremely tasty and enjoyable…

Back to our room and very very tired tonight so off to bed early…been another massive sight seeing day that filled every sense….

If I make spelling mistakes I am sorry but limited time to get this done and no time to check them! Guess I’ll have to edit them once home! For now please forgive me!!Read more