We’ve spent the last 2 days of our trip in a small town called Merritt which we used as a base to break up the long travel distances as we move across Western Canada. We were originally attracted to Merritt because it is promoted as the “country music capital of Canada”, although to be honest, there’s very little sign of that at all! They do have an annual country music festival, but that’s in August, and some murals of country music stars on the buildings downtown, but that’s about it. Hardly Nashville 🙂

Anyway, we had a quieter couple of days here after our very busy time in Vancouver and Whistler over the last week, and we went to some of the local provincial parks and hikes, and to one of the nearby (larger) towns yesterday.

It was a nice scenic drive from Whistler to get here, up in to the mountains and then back down to a drier and warmer part of the country. Here’s Duffey Lake which we drove past en route:

Our Airbnb is nice as well, it’s up in a residential area with nice views out over the Nicola Valley.

On our first day we went to Monck Park for a hike along the lake.

Then to another nearby hike called the “Too Much Information Trial”, which was a winding walk through the forest and up to a nice viewpoint overlooking the town:

On day 2 we went to a local cafe called ‘Home Restaurant’ which came recommended and had a massive brunch before driving around 55 mins to a nearby larger town called Kamloops:

The town had a long riverside walking trail and a small high street that we wandered along. There was also a small but decent mall in town which we popped too on the way back.

We found a really nice local brewery in Merritt town when we got back as well called the Empty Keg Brew House which had a nice selection of local beers and decent sampling flight boards too. We’ve been filling our evenings catching up on the World Cup of Darts from last weekend (quality final!) and the NBA playoff finals which are on at the moment too.

We are moving on today to our next destination which is Vernon for a couple of days. More pics and updates soon.

Si