Saturday September 6, Silverton BC

After such a “social” day yesterday, today we stepped back the pace as we drove through the mountains, forest and lakes on “the road less travelled”.

Managed to get the laundry done before we left camp on an overcast day. The drive to Lumby and onto Cherryville was through a valley that appeared to be an early settled area by the age of the barns. Cherryville had their Saturday market happening and stopped to have a look. It was delightful, and appeared to be full of “older hippies” selling their organic vegetables, candles, honey and jewellery. We then climbed into the mountains and a wonderful drive to the ferry at Fauquier. The pine beetle is very evident in this area, and we keep thinking what a catastrophe it would be if it got into our NZ forests.

The cable ferry crosses the Arrow Lake, which was formed by a dam on the Colombia River. The lake stretches for several hundreds of kilometres, but it very narrow, and the gap we crossed was only about 1 km. There are a number of free ferry’s on these lakes, and this one ran every half and hour. We enjoyed being out on the water again!

Drove up the side of the lake to Nakusp, a rather neat little town right on the lake. This weekend is Canada’s Labour Day celebrations with a holiday on Monday, so these little towns are much busier than usual.

Peter in Calgary had recommended the municipal camp in Silverton as a great little spot, and as we passed several rather nice Provincial camps on the lake we were a bit tempted to stop for the night, but continued on, and once again Peter, thanks for a great call.

It is a great little camp right on Lake Slocan, and we had no sooner pulled up when an older couple near by asked us up for a drink. What a delight, Les at 83 and Francis, 79 still enjoy heading off in their caravan for a break.