Alan is writing the blog today and Sarah’s comments will be in red.
We were up bright and early this morning as we had a long drive ahead of us today from Whistler to Sun Peaks. It had been raining very heavily for most of the night. We started off with some crepes for breakfast from the same place we had lunch yesterday. They were so yummy! Sarah had researched the trip for today and it appeared that we would have very little to look at during our drive.
We hit the road after checking out of our hotel at about 10am. We stopped a little way down the road in Pemberton to fill the petrol tank since there was a sign saying last fuel for 94kms. In Vancouver petrol was $1.16 a litre. We paid $1.09 today at Pemberton and saw it later for $1.05. It would appear the more remote the place, the cheaper the petrol. We gradually began climbing into the mountains and before long, large snowdrifts started to appear along the side of the road. At one point we came across a sign pointing to Lake Joffre, which was the only place I had information on so we turned off hoping to have a short walk to the lake. Unfortunately, there was far too much deep snow for us to contemplate a nature hike so we quickly returned to the car. The information I had was that there was a lovely view right beside the parking lot but through some trees so you can’t actually see it from the road. So close, and yet so far.
At one point of the trip today we were driving for about 45 minutes through the mountains without seeing any other people or vehicles. Lucky we didn’t break down or run off the road. The mountains were so tall and steep, and not surprisingly there were Avalanche Area signs every now and then. From time to time there would be a sign saying End of Avalanche Area and then another one starting again within 100 metres or so. Why bother?
After driving for some time through the snow covered mountains, all of a sudden we came upon a frozen lake (Duffey Lake) which ran right next to the road. It was such an amazing sight so we just had to stop and take photos of it. Here and there the ice was melting next to the shore, so I suspect it would have been very unwise to try walking out onto the ice.
We continued on our way and began our descent out of the mountains. The snow covered slopes were replaced by rocky ones instead and a little way further up the road we rounded a bend when Sarah shouted to stop. It was more like PULL OVER at the top of my lungs. Beside us was a magnificent aqua coloured lake (Seton Lake), so we pulled into a viewing area and took some more photos. We came across a 3rd lake (Pavilion Lake) further down the mountain and this one was a deep green sort of colour. Unfortunately the couple of photos I took do not really show the colour of the lake.
After finally coming out of the mountains we came across a small town so we stopped at the petrol station to buy a drink. There was a girl standing just inside the door, staring outside, waiting to say hello to anyone who might happen to walk inside. Small town people with nothing to do.
The countryside was now changing to cattle farms and it looked so dry that it was hard to believe there was so much snow and water half an hour back up the road. At one point we had to stop while 2 girls on horses herded a bunch of cows across the highway. There were so many calves in amongst them and they were ever so cute. They had 3 dogs helping them, but they seemed to be frightened of the cows.
The next 100 kilometres or so were very boring with not much to look at, but then we came to the town of Kamloops at which point we knew we were getting fairly close to Sun Peaks. The directions we had gotten from the internet weren’t particularly accurate and we were lucky to end up on the right road despite a great lack of sign posts directing us.
We were expecting there to be a fair bit of snow here when we arrived in Sun Peaks, but there’s really not too much at all. I guess that’s why the season ended here a couple of weeks ago. It’s a really quaint little town nestled in the mountains with all the buildings built in a very similar European chalet style. We found our hotel easily enough because it’s such a small, quiet place. After checking in, we decided to take a walk around the immediate area and were surprised to find a lack of people throughout the entire town.
Our hotel has 190 rooms and we are the ONLY people staying here. We went to have a look at the hotel restaurant and they close at 7pm because there’s simply no use staying open. We made sure that we got back there for our dinner nice and early so that we didn’t miss out and the waitress said that we were the first people she had seen in about 4 hours. She was heading home as soon as we were done. Our burgers were really really yummy.
We took a drive around the whole town (which took 5 minutes) and once again we saw hardly anyone. It’s really quite strange and freaky. Has anyone seen “The Shining”? We keep bugging Nathan, the guy at the front desk, but hopefully he’s happy to actually have some conversation. Not really bugging him. We had to ask about the internet because it wasn’t working, we needed to know where the ice machine was and I needed another pillow. The internet is very unstable here so there’s a good chance the photos from today won’t be uploaded until tomorrow night. I’ll try, but don’t hold your breath.
We’ve been for a couple of wanders outside, but it’s absolutely freezing out there now (8pm and still broad daylight) so I doubt we’ll be leaving the room again before morning.
So for a day in which we didn’t think we’d see anything good, we’ve done pretty well.
Tomorrow is our longest driving day of our trip as we travel from here to Jasper, which is between 500 and 600 kms I believe.
It’s 8.13pm and Nathan has just called our room to tell us that the hotel owners won’t substantiate having him on duty all night so he’s going home for the night. This place is so strange.
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