Today we are moving on from Vernon, where we have been the past few days following our stay in Merritt. As the drive was only a few hours we decided to stop en route in a place called Kelowna, somewhere that was recommended by one of the bar staff in Vancouver actually.

Kelowna is a small city in the Okanagan Valley and much of the central part is situated along Okanagan Lake, and is surrounded by parks and mountains – very picturesque. We only stopped for a few hours, but it was enough time to have a stroll along the lake and have lunch, and treat ourselves to an ice-cream too!

Vernon

When we arrived in Vernon it was welcome to see that there was a bit more going on than in Merritt, and a lot of the local bars and restaurants were within walking distance which made a nice change. Again, we had a lovely basement Airbnb apartment and after quickly unloading the car we made for downtown where we had a few local beers and had sampled some BBQ food for dinner.

We only had one full day in Vernon and we decided to head to back to Kelowna as there were a few things in that area that we wanted to do but didn’t have the time on our brief stop the day before. First up was a bike ride in Myra Canyon, a really popular scenic bike trail high up in the mountains. It’s 24km in total and there is a bike rental place situated by the carpark so it’s super-convenient.

The trail takes you along part of the Kettle Valley Railway (KVR) and there are 18x wooden trestle bridges, 2x steel bridges and and 2x tunnels that you need to navigate your way through. As you are high up in the mountains the views of the canyon and valleys below are absolutely glorious, but you did have to be somewhat careful whilst you were cycling i.e. you didn’t want to get too near the edge where there was a sheer drop in places! You can actually hike the trail instead but at 24km, we wanted to do it all so biking seemed more sensible.

So that was the morning taken care of. The next thing on our list for the day was a hike up Knox Mountain. Called the ‘Apex trail’ it takes you to the top of Knox Mountain. After swearing off summit climbs for a while after the ‘Grouse Grind‘ we decided we were ready to tackle another climb. It was a 4km round trip and took around 1.5 hours to complete so not quite as strenuous as the GG, but it was really steep in places which did bring back memories (did I say memories, I meant nightmares!) of the Grind. Again, you are rewarded with awesome views of the city and lake below once you made it to the top.

We got caught in a huge thunderstorm on the drive back to Vernon so it wasn’t a pleasant drive back. It was raining so hard you could barely see in places. Anyway we are heading to Revelstoke today for 2 nights so more from us in a few days.

Lucy