We got up at the crack of dawn and made our way to the Campbell River marina to meet our fishing guide for the day – Sonny Boon of Boonie Charters. We were hoping that Sonny would help us hook into the King of all salmon – the mighty Chinook.
The drive from Penticton to Vancouver was long but spectacular, particularly through Manning Provincial Park where the road weaved its way through valleys with swirling misty clouds suspended among the treetops between the mountains. The weather was fierce and we drove through one hell of a hailstorm which made us feel sorry for all the motorbike holiday gangs and backpacking cyclists. The hail on the ground was so thick that we stopped for a hail-ball fight.Continue reading…
Our final day outing during our week in Lethbridge, was to the Canadian Badlands to explore Dinosaur Provincial Park. And what an outing it was!
After driving through mile upon mile of flat farmlands where you can see forever in every direction and the sky is an infinite artwork of puffy clouds, blue skies and magnificently angry grey storms moving across the horizon, the land all of a sudden dropped away into a massive gorge with rock formations in shades of brown and red around a snaking river.
We stood at the viewpoint at the end of the earth and marvelled at this bizarre natural phenomenon in complete silence and awe – the scale of this Mars-like landscape was just astounding. The eerie silence was only pierced by the whistling of the wind across the plains behind us and it felt like time stood still as we absorbed the incredible view.
The beauty of staying in a lesser known destination is the adventure of discovering the hidden gems that the area has tucked away out of the regular tourist’s sights.
Many Canadians said we were nuts to spend a week in Lethbridge as they deemed it flat, ugly and boring. But we had an absolute ball proving them completely wrong!
We bade a very sad farewell to Two Jack, Banff and the Rocky Mountains and headed East in the direction of the Canadian prairies, for a week of luxury at the Paradise Canyon Golf Resort in Lethbridge, thanks to a South African timeshare swap.Continue reading…
