Road Tripping: Nakusp to Manning Park

Five days; four nights; ~ 560 kms of driving

stops in Revelstoke, Salmon Arm, Merritt

The route ( clicking on the image will yield a great amount of detail)

Revelstoke

(Spoiler alert: a major focus on food in this part of the post 😉)

On our way to Nakusp from Lake Louise we'd paused in Revelstoke long enough to have breakfast, a walk and do some laundry, knowing that we would be coming back here for a two night stop. We'd passed through this town a number of times on previous trips and felt we'd really like to stay a couple of nights on this trip to get to know the place a bit better. Besides that, Di's birthday was happening so we thought it would be a fun place to celebrate.

The main entrance to Revelstoke celebrates the wild environment surrounding the town with a couple of bear sculptures ...

G'day mate!

In a previous post I highlighted some of the historical aspects of the town. This visit was more about ensuring we had a relaxing time at the start of our journey back towards Vancouver and were well rested by the time we met with our friends James and Cathy in Manning Park. We started by having a gentle afternoon walk and a coffee at La Baguette, who bill themselves as an "artisanal bakery and cafe". 

Welcome to La Baguette

A fair call I reckon. They have a great range of bread, savoury treats and - of most interest to yours truly - a wide range of fantastic pastries ...

Only part of the selection!

There was something though that set La Baguette aside from a lot of other excellent bakery cafes that I've had the good fortune to visit. You can find great coffee and pastries in lots of places - thought not often in such a small place like this (although Abundance in Lillooet was an exception). Check out this: 

Almond croissant and coffee

If you look closely at the image above you will see a square object that is a tracker. La Baguette is quite a large premises, and also has a substantial outdoor seating area. Now, we've visited cafes before where they give you a buzzer which alerts you when your coffee is ready to collect. It seems that this is becoming an increasing trend - that is if they don't just call your name.

Here at La Baguette they bring you your coffee when it's ready by finding you courtesy of the tracker. A small thing maybe but a really nice touch I thought.

For dinner that night we visited The Old School Eatery, which - with its menu of "sophisticated comfort food" - sounded just like what were looking for to celebrate the completion of Di's seventy-second year on the planet. Also of course it seemed a fitting place to have a meal since we'd both spent the majority of our working lives in the education sector. Finally, as we'd discovered on our walk around the town the last time we were here, the old school that houses the restaurant is a beautiful building ...

The restaurant occupies what was apparently the grade seven room ...

It turned out that the food was excellent, the staff super friendly and the atmosphere nice and laid back. We'll definitely eat there again if we ever find ourselves spending more time in Revelstoke in future.

The forecast for the rain to clear away overnight and a fine day upcoming, so I thought I'd have an early ride north along  Lake Revelstoke before spending the bulk of the day with Dianne. The lake is a 130 kilometre long hydro-electric impoundment so I wasn't about to ride to the end of the lake and back. I thought I'd go out about 35 kilometres and turn around ...

My early start meant that I had the pleasure of sighting a moose cow just before I even reached the lake. Unfortunately it saw me coming and strolled back into the forest before I had a chance to take a picture. A little further up the lake I saw a Mule Deer but it too disappeared into the trees before I could get my camera out.

The views riding alongside the lake were lovely. Maybe my favourite is this one, looking east along the inlet about two-thirds of the way out ...

I took numerous photos of the lake itself. There was quite a bit of cloud cover on the way out, which gradually lifted over the course of my ride. This photo shows what conditions were like most of the way to the northern end of my ride ...

... but by the time I turned around and was on my way back there was quite a lot more blue sky presenting more opportunity to appreciate the colours of the forest and the lake ... 

There were a couple of significant bridges crossing major streams flowing into the lake. Here is one of those ...

A major landmark in the vicinity of Revelstoke is the imposing peak of Mount Begbie. My impressions are that this mountain is to the people of Revelstoke what kunanyi/Mt Wellington is to Hobartians. It's a stunning and distinctive-looking peak with a triple-headed summit. 

As  I drew closer to Revelstoke on my return journey I took a couple of photos ...

... but here is a much better picture of Mt Begbie as it appears from Revelstoke ... 

Iconic Mt Begbie overlooks Revelstoke

Interestingly, like kunanyi/Mt Wellington, the upper reaches of Mt Begbie have been under threat of commercial development which many locals feel would spoil the wild feel of the mountain for visitors. However, under a BC government restraining order there is a current five year moratorium on major commercial development on the mountain. I for one wish the locals well in obtaining permanent protection for their beloved peak.

On to Salmon Arm

Revelstoke to Salmon Arm

As much as possible we've been trying to avoid travelling on major highways - especially the Trans Canada Highway - throughout the duration of of our trip. There was no alternative for the drive through to Salmon Arm but we still managed to wander along at a moderate pace by pulling over frequently to allow faster moving traffic to pass. A leisurely start in Revelstoke meant that we arrived about lunchtime, so we did a quick bit of research and found a place called Anvil Coffee Collective which had good ratings. The coffee was really good and we each had a delicious sandwich but what I liked most about the place was this fantastic old map of Canada that occupied a large space on a wall in the back of the cafe ...

"The Dominion of Canada and Newfoundland"

Its title dates the map to having being published before the 31st of March, 1949 which was when Newfoundland joined with the rest of Canada.

The district of Salmon Arm is incredibly rich farmland, which I hadn't realised before but discovered the next morning when I went out for an early ride. Here are a few images from that ride ...

Hobby farm on the outskirts of Salmon Arm

Wonderful rich valley bottom

More rich pasture about 200 metres elevation above the valley below

Goat dairy selling goat manure

Cadillac Ranch (with a nod to my mate Andrew J Elder Smith)

A decrepit and very tilted old barn

This was such a great ride I put together a little Relive video which turned out quite well.  You can watch it here.

Di's Waterfront Walk

While I was out pushing the pedals Di took a stroll down along the lake's edge. She took some lovely photos in the still conditions. Here are a couple from the jetty ...

One from the shore which shows a bit of the marvellous wetlands that fringe the lake in places ...

... and another of a small group of people enjoying a quiet moment's fishing in a secluded corner ...

On her way back to our motel room she stopped off at the market where she admired some of the local garden produce ...

... and stopped off at a bakery stall where she picked up some stuff for our breakfast and to snack on while we were driving ...

The next couple of days of our trip were pretty uneventful but we did drive through some beautiful countryside, staying off major highways all the way from Salmon Arm to Princeton. (If you click the link a google map will open and you can zoom in and out for more detail and a better sense of where exactly in the province this road trip is situated.) 

The landscape had by now changed quite dramatically from rugged mountain ranges wreathed in forest and separated by long, narrow lakes to rolling mostly open rangelands. There were still lakes, but they were much smaller, often in chains joined by small streams rather than raging rivers.

Our final overnight stop before arriving in Manning Park was at the old western town of Merritt. Sadly for us this place we remember so fondly from previous visits seems to have been overwhelmed by the large motels and fast food joints on its eastern entrance. The one highlight of being in Merritt was seeing a Yellow-Bellied Marmot foraging in some boulders when we pulled in to park at a sports bar for dinner. (I also got to simultaneously watch baseball and football while having what was a pretty good meal. 😉)  Di had her phone out and managed to get a couple of photos through the windscreen ...

The next morning we had another lovely drive south to Princeton, a town that largely exists due to the presence of a huge copper mine nearby. We stopped for a bit of lunch and to do some shopping for our upcoming three night stop at Manning Park.

At Princeton we once again joined the Crowsnest Highway which we had last left in Cranbrook a couple of weeks previously when we headed north to Radium. It was almost shocking to find ourselves on a major highway again, with four lanes in places, after dodging busy roads for so much of our trip. Thankfully there was less than an hour of it before we arrived at Manning Park to meet our friends James and Cathy.

My next and final post will be about our stay here in wonderful Manning Park with our friends James and Cathy Newman, where I'm sitting at present with my batteries just about drained and my bed calling.