Monday

Here we are having had a very nice lazy day in Grand Forks. We left Canmore on Saturday and travelled to Cranbrooke where we had the most charming motel room. Lovely balcony on which we watched the changing light of the sun on the Steeples, the mountains near the town.

We walked round the bird sanctuary, but had stupidly left the binoculars in the room! It was a lovely spot.

We went to church on Sunday morning and left straight from there for here. About an hour and a half into the journey we decided to stop for a coffee and a donut at Tim Horton’s a Canadian fast food chain which does wonderful coffee and even better donuts. We usually have a mini donut but gave into a huge one each when we discovered as we got out of the car that we had left the rucksack with the passports, iPads and my credit cards inside the church. So we had no choice but to turn round. Fortunately through the church’s website we managed to contact someone to open it up. And there it was, lying where we had left it. Phew.

So we had a very much longer journey here than we should have done, but the amazing scenery of this part of British Columbia made up for it. Stunning views and a surprise round every corner. Up and down mountain passes, lots of lakes and forests, but with many more deciduous trees. And open spaces to lighten the effect of the pines. We should really have stopped to take in more of it all but with the lengthened journey just wanted to get here! We did snap a Wild West hotel at Yaht, an Art Deco cinema in Creston, and the lovely Lake Moyie.

Grand Forks is a nice little town, the grand fork being two rather insignificant rivers meeting. We have a nice room overlooking one of these rivers and have sat outside most of the day. It is very like Scotland round here, but warmer!

We passed through cherry picking country, wow, these cherries rival Burgundy’s best. Life really is a bowl of these at the moment. It’s tough!

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