June 7: Down In The Park

I headed towards town again this morning.

The mini-basketball games were on again. Over the railway line, there was a huge pedestrian overbridge, which lead to the stadium and park area.

Riverside Park was full of families having a fun day.

At the Rotary Bandshell, an outdoor mass was being held.

Not Open

One thing I wanted to see in Kamloops was the Secwépemc Museum Heritage Park, run by the Secwépemc First Nations people. For this, I caught a bus that took me over the river into the hill suburbs. I got off at the nearest bus stop, walked to the museum and, thanks to my usual lack of forward planning, discovered it was closed on Sundays.

Heading back towards the bus stop, I decided that this was my opportunity to finally go to a Tim Hortons. Tim Hortons is Canada’s national coffee, donut and other baked goods franchise. It is everywhere: every big city, every small town, suburban underpass, service station in the middle of nowhere—you can always find a Tim Hortons; it’s more ubiquitous than Starbucks, which is saying something. The bagel and coffee were okay.

I took the bus further along the route to see what was there, but it was mostly either developing suburbs or industrial park.

Took the bus back a few stops to Sweláps Market, run by the Secwépemc. Got some supplies and a triple-scoop ice cream.

Went back to town and had a look at the library (and picked a free book about innumeracy), but it, the mini-basketball games and the town were closing for the day, so I went back to the motel, updated the blog and pre-packed.

June 8: Journey to Hope

Got up early, finished packing, left my room key in the box at the office, and walked up the road with my bags back to the shopping mall where the EBus station is. After several minutes’ wait, it opened and our queue of passengers boarded the bus heading south.

A brief stop at Merritt, and then onward.

As we drove along the highway, the hills steadily replaced scrub with trees. The hills became taller and steeper, and mountains flecked with snow appeared the gaps between hill peaks. There were also variation in forest coverage, between slopes with full trees and slopes which had been through the January fires.

After a two-hour journey, the bus turned off into Hope and dropped me off near the visitors’s centre.

Carving Rambo

Check-in at my next stay wasn’t until 3:00 (no hotelier wants you to arrive early), so I had lunch from my own supplies, then dragged my case along to the town centre.

I had a coffee, then had a look around. Hope has a tradition of wood carving and there were many examples around the Memorial Park and elsewhere.

Hope was also where the 1982 movie First Blood was filmed, so there are many references to it here.

I checked at the local visitors’ centre regarding the Othello Caves, a nearby feature that’s appeared in several movies. There was an information poster advertising free shuttles to the caves from Vancouver, but they only ran three times a month and not when I’d be here. The caves are about 7km from Hope, so a visit was looking doubtful at that moment.

Stay What?

Getting past 12:00pm, I headed toward the Coquihalla Motel on Old Hope Princeton Way, hoping I could leave my bags there before check-in. When I got there, the office was closed and two other cases were sitting on the steps. I rang the bell but no-one answered. There was a contact number, but I felt not like calling it. Instead, I sat on the step and worked on the blog.

Some other motel residents came by, also looking for the office person. After a few tries on the bell, the manager answered. She apologised for the delay but asked me to wait at a nearby gazebo. A little puzzled, I did so, using the time to update the blog more.

At 3:00pm, I went back to the front door and rang again. The manager, whose called herself Colette, came out again and, after a little confusion, apologised again; she said various local people like to hang out the front of the motel and thought I was one of them, not a paying guest. She then said she’d been trying to contact me, but Expedia (through which I’d made the original booking) hadn’t passed on my contact details. The reason was that the motel room just vacated, which was to have been mine, turned out to have bedbugs and no other rooms were available. Colette made a couple of calls to other local motels, and found a room available at Hope Inn & Suite, just back along Old Hope Princeton Way.

So I walked back along the road with my backpack and case until I found this new place. The proprietor behind the desk at first said he hadn’t received a booking for me. After some quick websearching, I found Colette’s number and passed the phone to the proprietor so that they could chat. They sorted out the booking and I moved into my new room. This worked out a bit cheaper than the Coquihalla option, so that was good.

Walkabout

After this escapade, I rested for a while, then attended to a more immediate problem: one of the wheels on my large case had broken in half after over five weeks’ use, and part of the exterior had worn away after being dragged around today.

I headed out to have a walk around town. Before heading out, I asked the proprietor of Hope Inn about direct transport from Hope to the Othello Caves. He said a taxi was the only option.

Outside, I first stopped into a Save-On-Foods outlet (I have become so savvy about Canadian chain stores over the past few weeks) and stocked up on food and a roll of duct tape. I then wandered through the town in the early evening. Hope is a quiet town after hours. It’s a little like Banff and Jasper, except that, instead of high, grey mountains flecked with snow in the middle distance, it’s surrounded by closer steep hills covered in forest, with the occasional mountain peak poking through.

Circling back, I stopped at the Mountainview Brewing Co. across the road from the motel and sampled some of their cider. Having had enough, I returned to the motel and applied a duct tape repair to the case. It’s not much, true, but, like me, it only has to last two more days…