We loaded up the car, shivering, the next morning to move on to the Okanagan. We stayed at the very nice and sunny(!) Kekuli Bay Provincial Park campground 11 km south of Vernon. Unlike Lightning Lake Campground in Manning, which was almost empty, this one was full. We drove around hopefully anyway, and encountered the park operator. When we inquired, she looked at us and our car, and asked if we were tenting. It turned out all the regular sites were full (with RVs) but there was an empty tent area. We camped on grass in an open area which we had to ourselves. If you’ve ever camped in a BC Provincial Park, you will know how unusual this is! Most BC Parks campsites have only hard-packed dirt or gravel sites, each surrounded by trees.
The sun is finally coming over the hill to warm our campsite. Very different from Manning Park! Thanks to Covid restrictions and the lack of other tenters, we had all this to ourselves.
The purpose of our trip was to check out the Okanagan Rail Trail, which I'd heard about when the local volunteers started fundraising. You can read about its history here: https://okanaganrailtrail.ca/a...
The trail happens to pass right by the campground. In fact, Kekuli Bay Provincial Park has a parking lot popular with cyclists looking to access the trail with the bonus of a beach nearby for an after-ride dip. Unfortunately, the ORT was closed for slope-stability maintenance in both directions and we saw several groups of disappointed cyclists getting back in their cars to drive to a different access point.
Thanks to the closures, our options were to ride the busy highway for more than 10 km south to connect to the trail or drive to Oyama and pick it up there. The bikes were still in the car so we drove. Most of the ORT is very well done but unfortunately dead-ends with a chain link fence across the trail north of Ellison Lake. No visible reason, just a City of Kelowna sign stating: “Area Closed. Undeveloped property with uneven surface and natural hazards may cause serious injury. No Trespassing. Violators will be Prosecuted.” Quite different from the “Use at your Own Risk” signs erected by other municipalities along the route. The trail itself, seen through the fence, didn’t look any different from the part we were on. Earlier I’d spoken to one of the prospective cyclists in the parking lot who had told me he’d managed to get past the fence at the south end and ridden the closed section. He had seen no reason for it to be closed. On our ride, we passed far more other cyclists than we had expected to see on a Wednesday a the end of September. Most were seniors on ebikes, but not all.
We rode south along the east side of Wood Lake and didn't stop until we saw this waterfall.
Looking west across Kalamalka Lake toward the raw highway cut. When the highway was widened (sometime in the last 10 years or so), it was relocated away from the lake and the former highway became a "slow" road, shared with bikes.
We always seem to get in a bit of hike-a-bike. This is NOT part of the ORT. We left our car at Kaloya Regional Park and decided to ride around the little peninsula. Turned out it's a walking trail.
