Day 4 - Whistler to Penticton
Written at 8:35am Alta Lake, Whistler - 1587km
Alta Lake by the Whistler
Hostel - Click
to enlarge
Another shot of the
lake - Click
to enlarge
Flowers and rail
tracks by the Hostel
- Click to enlarge
I originally planned to wake
up at 5:45am and go take some pictures at Brandy Wine
falls again when the light was good, but I was too tired
and sore so I slept “in” until 8am instead. Took a shower
(showers are worth the price of hostel admission alone)
Alta
Lake and the Hostel panorama
- Click to enlarge
Written at 1:39pm Lytton
1795km
The road connecting Whistler
to Lytton started out with some pretty smooth pavement.
However as I closed into the mountain passes, the road
got quite a lot rougher. There were also some loose
gravel and sand on the road making things a little bit
trickier than usual. Got stuck behind some cars and a RV
for a while, but then a Corolla, me, and a Chevy truck
got past it and started to drive a little faster. The
Corolla led us at a pretty brisk pace, about 80kph in
the 60 zone, but soon I got bored and blew past him. The
pavement had a lot of cracks and the texture was quite
rough, probably because of all the freezing that goes on
in the foothills during winter time. The way I drive in
unfamiliar roads is to hit the corners enough to
generate maybe 0.5g and try not to use the brakes too
much. So I never really go extremely fast in the
straights and I leave quite a bit of room for error.
Video: Pemberton to Lilloet
Video: Following the Corolla on the way to Lilloet
Video: Stopped at for road works
Sorry, no pictures near
this section because driving was too much fun!
The Chevy truck got past the
Corolla and actually kept up with me pretty good, I
pulled away in the corners but he caught back up in the
straights. After a few kms of that we encountered more
traffic. This time it was a full sized tour bus with 4
cars behind it. I was stuck behind this group for a good
10 minutes before I came across a rare passing zone. I
originally wanted to pass just 1-2 cars, but as I
redlined 3rd gear and the coast remained
clear, I actually ended up passing all of them in one
go. That was exciting, but a little hairy because any
mis-calculations or if someone driving really fast was
coming the other way, there wasn't any room to dodge on
these narrow mountain roads.
Video: Single lane wooden bridge, 5 cars and a tour bus
No pictures here either!
Driving heaven prohibits phtography.
After I blew past them, it
was just pure driving heaven. Corners come right after
one another, with speeds ranging from high 2nd
gear to low 4th gear, up and down hills and
valleys. Some of the sections had a 13% grade, which
were steep enough to really tax the brakes even in a
comparably light weight car with 4 wheel disc brakes
like the MINI. There were a couple of hairpin turns as
well where I got to really push the car to the limit
(since speeds are lower and I could see out the other
end and know I wouldn’t hit anything)
Yep driving here was just
so damn fun I couldn't stop!
There were like 5 or 6
single lane wooden bridges along this road, where you
would need to yield to on coming traffic. I got lucky
and never had to yield to anyone. Almost into Lilloet
there was a view point on top of the mountain passes, I
stopped there and helped a guy take a picture of him in
front of his VW Corrado. He said he stopped for 2 rolls
of film on the way up the mountain. I’m sure a missed a
lot of good photo-ops but honestly, the photographer in
me lost out to the driver, the drive was way too much
fun to even slow down for 5 seconds! Infact I was in
such a rush to get going again I just snapped 2 pictures
in like 30 seconds and left
J
Picture one: Oooh
twisty mountain roads, how I love thee! - Click to
enlarge
Picture two: The sign
says "13% grade" - A is more like the grade for this
stretch of road - Click to enlarge
The town of Lilloet seemed
to be inhabited mostly by natives. I stopped in front of
a Chinese restaurant wanting to grab a quick lunch, but
it was closed. Another granola bar it is then! From
Lilloet I drove down to Lytton. The scenery reminded me
of those mid west cowboy movies – very desert like, dry
hills, brown grass, dirt patches everywhere and really
dusty. Unlike most part of southern BC, I didn’t like
this very much. My progress was delayed by a couple of
road works. They were cleaning out some rock fall on the
highway and had to close down one of the lanes of
traffic. Saw a bunch of mountain goats jogging along the
road too, they gave me a “what the hell are you looking
at stare” as I drove past, lol.
Video: Highway 12 just after Lilloet
Video: Single lane road above the Lilloet Valley
Mountain goats giving
me the un-mistakable "What the hell are you looking at!"
stare - Click to enlarge
The Lilloet river,
the mountains, the goats, and some of BC's finest twisty
roads - Click to enlarge
I took highway 1 north from
Lytton and followed a cop car for quite a while. Driving
became very dull, I just sat there semi conscious and
set the cruise control to whatever speed the cop was
doing. I wished the car would just drive itself in those
kinds of situation. The cop car clocked a Nissan Murano
speeding going the opposite direction and did a U turn
to catch him, thank god! (don't think the Murano driver
said "Thank God", but the glass is always half empty
isn't it?)
Video: Train bridge near Lytton
Video: Following Cop car
Maybe because I was hungry,
or maybe the music was too loud, I forgot to turn off at
the junction to highway 8. I didn’t realize it until
like 30 km later either, so I had to turn off at
Ashcroft and drive 97C south. That was a huge mistake
and it cost me like 200 km total. I had to make up time;
fortunately making up time was really easy on this
stretch of 97C. There were hardly any traffic at all,
mostly straights with some very gentle and long corners.
If you like to see how fast your car can go, this is the
place to be. I passed like 4 cars in that 1.5 hour span,
so you’re not likely to be running into anything. There
were at least 3-4 straights long enough to do top speed
runs. Unfortunately there were more road works near
Merrit and that slowed things down quite a bit.
From Merrit the drive to
Penticton was very dull. I was a little burnt out from
driving so fast for like 3 hours straight and just
wanted to get it over with. Fortunately there was this
crazy woman in her Corolla CE who was in a huge hurry,
so I used her as a shield and got to Penticton pretty
quickly. This part of BC really wasn't very pretty at
all, the roads were too straight and wide, really made
driving quite a chore.
Video: Following the Corolla at 5000rpm
Video: Still following the Corolla
Video: Very long downhill on Hwy 97C
I dropped by the Penticton
visitor’s center and talked to this Chinese girl called
Amy (who had a big pimple on her face). She was way
nicer than her pimple though, and told me a couple of
places where I could go and take in the scenery near
Penticton.
Video: Hwy 97 Between Peachland and Penticton
Video: Ultra smooth highway near Penticton
After that I checked in at
the hostel in downtown Penticton at about 4:30pm. The
weather was very sunny and it was almost 33C. The hostel
room smelled like crap, really stuffy and hot. I really
wasn’t looking forward to coming back and sleeping
there.
Driving in the rain
near Okanagan Falls - Click to enlarge
I like waterfalls, so the
next destination was Okanagan Falls. I read online
somewhere that there was an awesome road right outside
of Penticton called “Green Mountain Road” which leads to
the highway on the way to Okanagan Falls, great!
Green Mountain Road was definitely one of the most fun
road out in BC. Very twisty the entire way and the
pavement is in tip top shape. Average speed was about
80-100km/h for me. A guy in a sports bike (who seemed to
know the road very well) blew by me in no time at all,
so if you’re not afraid of hitting wild animals and you
know all the corners like the back of your hand, I think
its quite easy to drive this road at over 140km/h. For
me, I always like to leave some room for error.
Video: Green Mountain Road
There were lots of tire
marks on the road, left by someone doing burn outs on
the road, leaving 2 long wavy lines on the road in
numerous places. There were also a ton of signs on the
side of the road which said "Private road" and "No
trespassing". Due to the almost total lack of any other
vehicles on the road I was actually a little bit worried
that if I crashed I would not be found for a while, so I
drove extra carefully and didn’t push very hard at all.
Midway through the road it started to rain. I slowed
down even more and before I knew it, the fun was over
and I was back on Highway 3A. At first I thought I took
a wrong turn and went the wrong way, so I turned around,
only to find out 5 minutes later that NOW I’m going the
wrong way. Damn it. What is with me and not following
the clear directions I printed off? Now the rain was
absolutely pouring down, free car wash I say! That
should wash the bird poop off the roof of the car.
(stupid birds at Lynn Canyon!)
Video: Free car wash
Video: Free car drowning
At Okanagan Falls I followed
the sign that said “National park” It was a really
twisty road for 10-15 minutes, but didn’t seem to go
anywhere! There were no information as to where the
road led to, so I just turned around and went back to
Penticton. This taught me a lesson: I should always
research my destination before hand and not just go
wandering into a strange place.
See the lack of pictures?
I wasn't happy with this either, Day 4 of my trip wasn't
very enjoyable, especially when compared to Day 3 in
beautiful Vancouver with my friends.
Following the visitor center
girl Amy’s advice, I went up to a hill just north of
downtown Penticton. It was the hill where the words
“Penticton” were written by big white stones.
Fortunately when I got there the rain stopped suddenly.
I didn’t really like the idea of going up a hill just
after a thunderstorm, so I didn’t walk all the way up
the hill. (doesn’t lightning kill more people than car
crashes or something? Didn't want to be another
"statistic"…) The clouds were still blocking the sun,
so nothing very exciting in terms of photography
happened. I was feeling a little down at that moment
because I made so many wrong turns today and I haven’t
really enjoyed any of the scenery much. After that I
drove down to the Penticton beach front.
View from the
Penticton hill top - Click to enlarge
The view looking back
at the hill top from the beach - Click to enlarge
Written at 9:16pm
Penticton Beach - 2367km
The beach front was
obviously a tourist attraction. With all the hotels
located there, naturally there were a lot of tourist
type people walking about. What was surprising was the
amount of shady looking young people there were. Many of
them walked in gangs, staring and pointing at passersby
and cars. My Red and white MINI with the Canada flag was
attracting unwanted attention there. I felt a little
nervous because of my expensive looking SLR camera
equipment; some of those young guys were pointing my
camera out to their friends, ugh.
MINI at the beach
front. The saving grace for today, a bad photography day
produced one of my favorite photos of the trip - Click
to enlarge
Sunset over the beach - Click to enlarge
With the rain stopped the
beach was pretty busy. The sun was starting to peek out
of the clouds again and it was casting down some nice
warm rays. I waited in the car for the sun to set, and
while waiting I wrote the journal entry for yesterday.
The sun was making the
clouds nice and reddish, so I went out on the beach for
a stroll and some pictures. After taking a few I started
to feel a bit better about today, getting lost and not
being able to take any good pictures pissed me off.
MINI by the beach -
Click to enlarge
Sunset over the beach - Click to enlarge
Beautiful sunset at the beach - Click to enlarge
As I walked back to the car,
a guy started calling “Hey you, yo! Buddy!” I didn’t
want to turn around at first, I mean, what would he
want? Show him how good my camera is so he can knock me
out and take it? But instinct took over and I just had
to turn and see. Turned out this not very creepy looking
young man was hailing me. He asked me if I could take
pictures of him. I said sure, but I can’t give him the
pictures right away, I’ll have to email them. (did he
expect me to carry a frigging Polaroid camera?) So he
gave me his email address and told me that he was a
start up DJ. He wanted some nice pictures for his “My
Space”. He had a strange French accent and said he was
from Vancouver, coming to Penticton for vacation. So I
took some pictures of him on the beach, and promised to
send him some pictures on email once I get home. The
pictures didn't turn out very good, I really need to
learn a lot more about portraits and lighting.
Picture one of the DJ
dude - Click to enlarge
Another pic of him - Click to enlarge
With the sky turning dark, I
headed back to the hostel for the night. Man, I hate
that hostel room! It was still really stuffy and
smelled like someone burned one of those “herbal
candles” or something there and the smell stank. It was
stifle hot in the room too. It was 10:30pm when I first
laid on the bed, and by 12:20am I was still awake. There
was only this tiny little square window (which was
opened) on one side of the room and a fan circulating
the hot dead air around the room so everyone can feel
hot and dead. I wanted to just sleep under the window,
at least its a tiny bit cooler there. But I know it’s
probably not the best idea to sleep on a hostel floor!
I even thought about sleeping in the car, but I’ve found
out that the car seat doesn’t have a big enough head
rest to really sleep comfortably on; besides, I heard
it’s not legal to sleep on the street, even in a parked
car.
The one and only
window in the hostel room of 6 people, and no draft were
coming through it either! - Click to enlarge
Anyway, I went to the
washroom to pour some cold water over my face, and
decided to wet 2 pieces of tissue with cold water and
slap them on my face. That did the trick and it cooled
my head enough that I could actually fall asleep. But
too soon it was 5:45am, and it was time to head out the
door and drive back to Calgary.
Statistic for today:
Top speed in the MINI – rev limited
:)
Cars passed at
once – 4 and a full sized tour bus
KMs driven - 780
10/7/06
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