A short drive from Hedley to West Kelowna
Day 19 of the trip – Thursday, May 12th – was a very easy driving day, just 138 km (86 mi) from Stemwinder Provincial Park near Hedley to Bear Creek Provincial Park in West Kelowna.
The drive is very scenic, on Highways 3, 3A, and 97 – click here to open an interactive version of the map in a new window.
I love our mornings, just starting the day out slowly with Bella, Tucker, and Molly all within a few feet, and all very happy with what’s going on.
Stemwinder Provincial Park was a good choice to overnight in – it’s lovely, and quiet. Any highway noise (and there’s not much of that) is drowned out by the Similkameen River right below the campsite.
It’s great for dogs, too – walking around the campsite and along the river is very pleasant.
A logging road meets the highway at Stemwinder, but I only saw 2 trucks all the time we were there.
I thought that I might stop for a look around Keremeos, but saw no place to park to make that possible so turned off Highway 3 onto 3A, and continued on.
We stopped for a little while along Highway 3A at Yellow Lake. It seems to be quite popular with fisherfolk, and a local fishing club has built a very nice dock at the large pullout where we stopped.
Just north of Keremeos, I saw a sign on a ranch driveway: “No To The National Park”. This is a reaction to a proposal to create South Okanagan-Similkameen National Park in the area. Both the “yes” side (at yesnationalpark.com, the previous link), and the no side, at nationalpark.com are quite vocal – it will be interesting to see where this goes.
There are some wonderful views along 3A, and traffic was very light.
We reached Bear Creek Provincial Park at about 1:00 pm, and found a nice campsite in the southern-most loop (site #116). The office wasn’t open for the season yet, but I found a park attendant to pay $245 for the 7 nights I planned. We’d be leaving on May 19th, and she warned me that there could be no extension, as the park was completely booked up on the 19th.
The next week in West Kelowna would be all about family.
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