Thursday June 11th

5:00pm

Today we left the mountains of Jasper for Kamloops – for an overnight stay on the way to North Vancouver. We followed the Yellowhead Pass through the mountains and through Mount Robson Provincial Park which was tinier than we thought..! On the way, we saw a black bear on his own, but he soon wandered off back into the nearby forest.

When we left the mountains, the landscape really started to look like we were in another country. Perhaps it was because we’d become accustomed to the housing styles in Ontario, and again in the mountains, becoming used to seeing mountains outside the windows for the last couple of weeks.
It was the unfamiliarity of the landscape as it turned hilly, became less covered with trees, and wider, more spaced out with fields as though we were in prairie land. There were farms and small businesses which seemed to pop out of nowhere, like random helicopter tours and canoeing clubs. The temperature began to soar up to 26 C.
There was a “random” business which we were looking out for though. After lunch, we kept our eye out for “River Safari”. I had discovered them on the internet, and their website looked really professional, and the photos were really great. I thought “why not?”, especially as there was no booking involved. Eventually we found them, a large entrance way off the main road with a HUGE wooden carved grizzly next to it. We trundled down the track, went across a bridge, trundled down another track....at this point we were wondering if we’d been conned...but sure enough there was a car park and a sort of dock.

We paid for our tickets on the next tour boat and sat down to wait for it. At this point it still looked very strange – they just didn’t seem very well established. It felt like we were on some random pier awaiting a random boat ride. But we put on our life jackets, got onto the boat, and out Australian guide Glen took us out for a ride on the Blue River and we ended up seeing TWO black bears and we got pretty close. It was great – Glen seemed to know a lot about bears too. We then zoomed off to a viewpoint to take a photo, then onto a waterfall which was also pretty good! Apparently it freezes in the winter...no surprise really, being in a country which can experience temperatures from -40C to +40C!

Money well spent, and not quite so suspicious of the seemingly ‘ad-hoc’ness of the “RIVER SAFARI”, we continued to Kamloops. We briefly paused one moment to see a GRIZZLY *nomming* in a random field, but like the black bear we saw this morning it soon went and disappeared into the nearby woods. We arrived in Kamloops with the windows closed and the AC on. It was about 35C outside – the thermometer in the car prepared us for the shock of the heat hitting us when he got out..!
Clouds were gathering, darkening the skies somewhat. We had heard thunder plenty of times earlier in the vicinity and we hoped a thunderstorm would pass over this way – the heat was oppressive and very very dry making us feel constantly thirsty. We had a quick walk “downtown” but decided Kamloops was plain, dreary, and quite unmemorable. We had seen the hotel menu and the food looked good for a reasonable price so we decided to stick with that. Tomorrow our breakfast would be in the same restaurant. It would be extra like in Lake Louise but as I said – the prices looked good.

Our room was actually larger than the box-room in the Deer Lodge. Despite being in a small town and having a window overlooking the parking lot, the room was nicer, brighter and more comfortable with space to move around. We had only one night here, but it was comfortable and bright. The restaurant was called “Rock Salt”, the food was delicious and I topped off my meal with Pecan Pie!