11th July 2016 - Salmon Arm BC - Kms to date 3,688

Kms today 512

Joan cooked us up a batch of pancakes for breakfast which we tucked into. We packed up, made our farewells and rode out at 8:30 after a great visit to our cousin. We headed out on Hwy 1 towards Hope along the Fraser River. The weather got steadily worse so we abandoned the detour recommended by a fellow biker we met on the ferry and headed north on Hwy 5 to Merrill and of course the weather cleared up as soon as we got into the mountains. The temperature had dropped to as low as 8C. We had lunch at a nice bakery in town. We had decided to head east towards Kelowna in search of more interesting (meaning more corners) roads.
Kelowna was just one traffic light after another and a real drag. I had found a minor road up to Salmon Arm and once I managed to get Alan to ignore Mabel his GPS, we enjoyed a bit of bend swinging to end the day.  The bends were often slow sharp ones in a sort of zig zag pattern and we learned later that the country had been split into "Sections" of 1 square mile for the settlers, and the road was following those boundaries.
We rocked up at Bert Revel's place at about 5pm and he was waiting for us.  Bert is the elder brother of Richard Revel. He was a teacher all his life and an environmental activist. He showed us a map he had prepared marking the locations of a pest weed in the area, but bemoaned the fact nothing was being done to eradicate it. He was 11 years old when his family came out to Canada in 1948 from Belfast. They lived near the Strand Cinema on the Holywood Road and later near Banbridge.  He did an exchange year in England and took his family back to his old haunts. He cooked us a slap up feed including a bottle of Marchel red wine, a varietal we hadn't tried before.
Bert's house was overlooking the lake and had a large garden with colourful flower beds, a veggie patch and apple trees, all very well kept.  The craic was good as we spoke about a wide range of topics as Bert is a man of wide tastes. He sings in two local choirs and runs another choir himself. He couldn't have been a nicer host.

No Photos as Alan has wiped my SD card again!