Tuesday June 30, 2015

We were up at 5:00 this morning and on the road by 6:45 am earliest start for a long time. The climbing started as soon as we got on to Highway 3 and continued for 31 kms!!

It was tough going, but I made it all the way without walking. I was very proud of myself when we got to the summit sign.

If someone told me 18 months ago that I would cycling up a hill for 31 kilometres with an average grade of 5% to 6.5% and that the elevation gain was going to be over a thousand metres, I would have said they were crazy.

I really don’t like cycling up hills and when we were at home I would avoid them as much as possible. Only when we were training for a ride that I knew was going to be hilly for example when we went to the Finger Lakes in New York State, only then would I cycle the hills in the area around Barrie. Now here I am routinely cycling 20 and 30 kms up hill without a break. I must be crazy.  Although I am not keen on the hills the scenery is well worth the effort.  I even spotted two deers as we came up the hill.  Ralf stopped to take a photo and then shooed them into the bushes, they were too close to the road for comfort.

As we climbed up Anarchist Mountain there was an area that was being developed.  The roads were in and so were the entrance signs to each \”Estate Area\”  each \”sign\” was a bronze statue depicting the name of the street or area.

We only saw two houses in the whole area.

The scenery was mountains and forestry, until we reached the summit and then it changed quite dramatically to rolling hills and farm land.

There were a number of possible Peddlers Rest – some needed some work.

As we dropped down from 1,223 metres to 531 metres I could feel my ears popping.

I had to stop at one point to equalize them.

We arrived at Kettle Creek and Rock Creek village and discovered it used to be part of a gold rush in 1858. Gold was found in the creek and $200,000 worth of gold was removed from the creek. We had a look at the water but couldn’t see any big chunks of gold so carried on to the Kettle Creek Valley Golf Course where we had lunch.

We met a very nice couple (the Reimer’s) they have travelled a lot in their RV and have now settled in Kelowna (for the summer). They go to California in the winter.

We chatted to them for an hour about their travels and ours. We had another couple of kilometres to go and they had to finish their round of golf.

We got to the Kettle Valley RV and Villas campsite. It is very nice and clean. We set up our tent near the shower facilities, we are the only tent here, the rest are RVs. We arrived at about 1:00, settled in and did a load of laundry, it is hanging to dry between two trees.

I mentioned to Ralf that I hoped the RVers didn’t disturb us with their noisy doors etc. Ralf indicated that he was sure that they were shocked at the owners allowing us to stay on this lovely site, hanging our washing out like the Clampetts.

After dinner, one of the RVers came over to our area and started chatting to us. She said curiosity got the better of her and she wanted to know what we were doing and why? She invited us over to the RV to meet her hubby and chat some more, but we had to have another early night.

The temperature today was very bearable, while we were going up the hill we were primarily in shade. The top temperature was 32 degrees and there is a nice breeze blowing at the moment. It may drop down to a comfortable 12 degrees tonight.

There is a weird bird wandering around the campsite, it is very skittish, Ralf couldn\’t get a photo of the silly thing. It makes a ka kah koo sound and has a crest on its head, it runs around and doesn’t fly much. Google is amazing it is a California Quail.

As we were getting ready for bed a thunderstorm came directly over us, no rain fell on us, but we could see the rain on the hills to the west of us.