Goodbye to the North…Hello to Sunshine and Great Friends!

We arrived in Williams Lake on July 19 IN SUNSHINE!!! I wish I knew how to put my dancing girl emoji on this post!!

Williams Lake is a city in the Central interior of BC, in the central part of the Cariboo region, which region also includes 100 Mile House and Quesnel. We spent a couple of hours in Quesnel when we were in Barkerville. It did not give us the warm and fuzzies! There was a very heavy police presence when we were there. They were obviously searching for someone or something. I’m sure it’s a great area…just not that day!

In Williams Lake we stayed at the Stampede Grounds which was a very unique and awesome experience! The sites were right outside the racetrack where you could watch folks with horses practising for various upcoming competitions. Kind of fun!! (If you’re thinking stinky and dusty, it really was not at all!). It was very clean and well kept…and grass!

I loved Williams Lake! Barry said it’s probably because we’re out of the cold north…he could be right, but it is an awesome small city with some great hiking and biking trails. It was also a great time to regroup and spring clean Bernie from the North! We were only there for 4 nights and spent one of those evenings getting to know our neighbours who are from Prince George but have retired and live in Mazatlán in the winter and travel in their RV for the summers. We have met so many people who traded in their materialistic lifestyle for a simpler life of experiences through RV travel.

Speaking of hiking and biking trails, while in Williams Lake the Farwell Canyon hike was recommended to us. It was awesome, and so different than any other hike we’ve done! The drive to it was also an adventure down an active logging road, which consisted of many kilometres of switchbacks up and down the mountain. The hike itself is to BC’s biggest natural sand dunes. It’s a 3.5 km loop considered moderately challenging by AllTrails, and it is! So unique…you hike down into the canyon by a narrow path, up the other side and eventually you hike up to the sand dunes. Being totally exposed I suspect it doesn’t take long for the footprints of fellow hikers to be replaced with small perfect ridges from the gentle winds sweeping over the tops, making the dunes seem totally untouched.

We also biked the Jimmy Fox trail on Fox Mountain just 10 min from our campground. I have to admit, I was nervous. I love mountain biking but I was in an unfamiliar area. My hard may be their easy…then what??!! However, that was not the case. Going up was challenging for sure, but coming down….like Christmas!!! Most of the down included moguls and wooden boardwalks! So much fun! Unfortunately we didn’t get pictures. We hoped to have time to do it again to get pics, but it didn’t happen. On to Kamloops!!

On our way to Kamloops to visit friends we went through 100 Mile House, which is part of the Cariboo trail. You will recall from our Barkerville post, gold fever hit BC in 1861 when gold was discovered at Barkerville. Immediately people began to trek northward through Lillooet. From there, miles were measured on what was is now the Cariboo Trail. The 100 mile point (100 Mile House) was a way-station which was built in 1863. The original 100 Mile House was destroyed by fire in 1937. You will see pics of the original BC express stage coach no. 14, which is the only surviving coach of the Barnard Express and Stage line that travelled between Ashcroft and Prince George as late as 1917.

Very close to the stage coach no. 14 in 100 Mile House we were surprised to read on a memorial plaque about CP Air Flight 21 that crashed near Dog Creek (40 km west of 100 Mile House) enroute from Vancouver to Whitehorse in the summer of 1965, and is still considered today to be one of Canada’s greatest aviation mysteries. The 52 lives on board were lost that summer day. An inquest determined the explosion was the result of a bomb in the lavatory, the source of which was never determined. The crime remains unsolved.

On a very happy note, we arrived at Dan and Tammy’s in Kamloops on July 23! Bernie just barely fit on their RV pad but it’s still perfect!

We had so much fun visiting with Dan and Tammy and their 3 newly adopted Chihuahuas! Merlot was so good with them. They had been through a lot and although all three would bark at Merlot, he was very patient. More friends, Pat and Faye, joined us at Dan and Tammy’s the following afternoon. All are such great people!! Check out our fun in the Williams Lake/Kamloops Album!