SPENDING A SATURDAY IN HOPE BC

Hope BC is 95 miles east of the big city of Vancouver and is the junction of three mountain highways and a site of a former Hudson Bay fort located on the banks of the Fraser River.

The Trans Canada Highway, also known as  Highway #1 heads north into the rugged Fraser Canyon which splits the Coast Mountains and the Cascade Mountains. 

Highway #5 heads north-east into the Coquilhalla Pass, known by many around the world as the Highway From Hell due to the TV series which follows the real life struggles of commercial tow truck operators winching 18 wheelers back up to the highways after they have gone off the road.   

Highway #3, known as the Crowsnest Highway, heads due east and follows a lower elevation route that is a two lane winding lane for most of its path. While the elevation is lower, the highway is no less dangerous.

The town of Hope sits at the western terminus of the three mountain highways as they exit the mountains and enter the flat land of the eastern end of the Fraser Valley. From there it is a relative straight shot west to Vancouver and the edge of the Pacific Ocean.

Today we would be settling for the town of Hope itself to wander around the town, shop the stores, and find a few geocaches which were new in the past few months.

Hope is also known as the chainsaw carving capital of Canada as there are no less than 80 carvings, most of them life size or larger. 

We have seen many of these over the years, for the grandkids along today this was a first for them. We looked at a few of the carvings and then let the kids play of the local playground before we head on to find some geocaches.

One of the fun caches of the day was located next to a residence which had two old stumps on the city property by the sidewalk and the family had turned the two stumps into a showcase of colourful birdhouses. Bird figurines are hidden among the bushes of the garden to complement the esthetics of the bird houses. 

Next geocache on the list was at the Pioneer Cemetery, which is always an interesting place to visit. What often strikes me was the short years most of the original people lived due the hasher lives they lived. 

Young Rowan found this cache, it was a plastic stick which had the cache tucked into one end of it. For a plastic stick, the cache blended in well with the other wooden debris on the ground.

The last three geocaches were located along the old Kettle Valley Railway right of way which headed east out of the town in the direction of the gold and silver mines of Southern BC.

If you followed this trail for another mile or two you would come across the Othello Tunnels, a wonderful feat of engineering where they blasted 5 tunnels through a short, steep canyon to allow the train passage through impossible terrain.

Pictures of Othello Tunnels and the Hell's Gate Air Tram from a previous visit can be seen here 

This section of the trail is less than a kilometre and is an easy walk and a great place for the kids to stretch their legs.

We found the cache at the start of the trail, with second cache being at the end of the trail. About halfway between the two, the youngest grandkid looks around a good hiding spot and found a geocache I did not have on the list. As I had found that cache previously, I had ignored it on my new search  Kudos to Camden for finding that one!

We continued on and found the last cache at the end of the trail, which much to the kids delight was a scary looking skull staring at you from under the forest debris.

By now it was the end of the day, we had all had our share of exercise for the day. The grandkids had scored some books at the book store, where all books are only $2.00 each, and the adults had a chance to get out of those house after days of winter rains.

We headed back home just a little tired and somewhat cold from the unexpected windy day in Hope. The temperature was mild at 12C, (54F) but the cold breeze just blew right through our hoodies and light jackets. Oh well, we survived.  😀 

Thanks for reading about the day's adventure. Leave a comment if you liked the story and you must click on the link to look at the pictures to get gain full appreciation of the day.

ALL PICTURES FROM THE DAY CAN BE SEEN HERE

FORT LANGLEY AND SENDALL GARDENS 

The Fab Foursome of myself, Annette, brother Ken and his wife Linda took advantage of the sunny weather and headed over to take a stroll around the village of Fort Langley, once the capital of BC.

We arrived mid-morning slightly ahead of the main crowds but parking was already at a premium. We wandered around the stores on the side streets and then meandered down Glover Road, which is the main street through town.

We popped in a few shops which caught our fancy, then settled into A restaurant with an outdoor covered patio for lunch.
We sat next to the fireplace, so we had the benefit of the sun and the fire. The good food had us ready to continue on with our day of touring.

After lunch we headed for Sendall Gardens, a 3.67 hectare garden which includes a small creek.

Originally owned by the Sendall family, the property eventually found its way in to hands of Langley city for preservation.
The city has done a great job of expanding access to the property via pathways to the surrounding neighbourhoods.

The city has also cleaned up some of the land and created paths within the small park which allows visitors greater access to the full property.

After our tour of the gardens, the group split up to go our separate ways to take care of some shopping chores on the way home.

ALL PICTURES CAN BE SEEN HERE ON MY FLICKR WEB SITE

 Spending a Sunday in and Around Harrison River Valley

ALL THE PICTURES INCLUDING A VIDEO CAN BE SEEN HERE

Aunty Diane and myself picked up the three junior woodchucks for a fun filled day of "exploring with Grampa"

First up was Weaver Creek Spawning Channel in the Harrison River Valley east of Mission BC.

Unfortunately we were in between salmon runs for this facility, so we drove a few miles down valley and stopped at the Chehalis River Fish Hatchery

Here we seen some Chinook salmon but mostly Chum salmon trying to gain access to the hatchery channels. We also looked around the hatchery and found a batch of fry in one of the rearing containers.

From the hatchery we drove a couple of miles up the Harrison West Forest Service Road to the location of an artesian well. Actually, it is the outlet of a pipe run from the neighbour's property on the hill above the road.

Being a good neighbour, the property owner installed a pipe down the hill to roadside for his fellow neighbour's and even built a rock faced Buddha shrine to highlight the water pipe outlet.

After this it was time for lunch, so we drove into Agassiz and had a great lunch at the Broken Whisk. The kids were happy about their burgers and chicken strips. Adalyn thought they were the best chicken strips she ever had, Rowan was extremely happy about his cheese burger and fries, while Camden thought his burger was pretty good but Wendy's was still better. All agreed the strawberry ice cream for dessert was fantastic.

After lunch I showed Diane Scofield a good thrift store built in the back parking lot of a church in Agassiz. Unfortunately the store was closed on Sundays but Camden and Rowan had fun playing chess on the large outdoor chess board.

From there we headed to visit the train museum but alas it was Sunday and the museum was closed as well, but we still took a few minutes to look around the rail car and the caboose on display.

Our last stop of the day was the Kilby Museum on the Harrison River close to the Lougheed Highway.

The Kilby Museum is housed inside of a large three story house with the 1906 general store on the main floor, and various boarding rooms on the top floor. The ground floor was the workshop for the farm which was also on this sight back in the day.

The building itself is up on 30 foot stilts to get above the spring floods which happened every year in the Fraser Valley until extensive diking took place in later years.

After touring the general store and surrounding farm, we began making our way home as the day was coming to an end.

Grampa took the kids on a few backroads they had not been on before, and we did a bit of bird watching in the back sloughs of the Fraser River.

We spotted many Bald Eagles of course; also present were American Coots, American Dippers, Common Mergansers, Mallard Ducks, Double Breasted Cormorants and others that were a bit too far away to accurately identify without binoculars.

It was a fun way to spend a few hours with the grand kids in between the rainy days of Fall. Grampa got to show them a bunch of new locations and sights, and Aunty Diane even got to see some new sights and sounds as well.

 PORT MOODY BOARD WALK

Annette and I took advantage of the late summer weather and enjoyed a walk along the newly renovated boardwalk along the eastern edge of Burrard Inlet in Port Moody.

We parked at the Port Moody rec centre and accessed the trail network from behind the rec centre.

The city has done a fantastic job on renovating the delipidated board walk with a well designed, elevated, and enclosed board walk connecting the south side of the inlet to the north side.

Along the way the trail intersects several times with the paved Trans Canada Trail which is the route for bicyclists accessing Rocky Point Marine Park.

Annette and I walked about halfway along, before we decided the heat of the day and the round trip distance might be more than we wanted to endure, so we re-thunk (sic) our plans and headed back to A\C of the car.

Enjoy the pictures and get down to the boardwalk and enjoy the views as you stroll along.

ALL PICTURES FROM THE DAY CAN BEEN SEEN HERE ON MY FLICKR SITE

 BC FARM MUSEUM AND THE HISTORIC HBC FORT LANGLEY

ALL PICTURES CAN BE SEEN HERE ON MY PHOTO WEB SITE

We had Camden the Junior Farmer with us for the day while the other family members went to the PNE.

We took Camden to the BC Farm Museum located in Fort Langley where Camden got his fill of old tractors and old farm equipment. The guy is pretty smart, he figured out what a lot of the old equipment was even if it looked nothing like today's versions.

Afterwards, we found a geocache a couple of blocks away, then went back and toured the actual fort in Fort Langley.

Built in 1827, the fort is an original Hudson's Bay Company fort catering to the lucrative trade in furs and salmon, which were shipped to rich nations in Europe and Asia

Camden's day was wrapped up with an early Pirate Pack dinner at White Spot where I hear the ice cream dessert was "to die for" !

There are many pictures here, mostly for the old farmers and history buffs in the crowd. While there are many agriculture items on display, there are also many other items such as washing machines, refrigerators, household appliances, radios, etc.

It is definitely worth a visit to experience our local history at both the farm museum and the fort.

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AFTER DINNER GEOCACHING

Trail alongside Chehalis Creek in the Harrison Mills area

Ken and I made a quick after dinner trip to Harrison Mills area to replace one of my geocaches which had been hidden 17 years ago.

(Hard to believe I have a geocache hidden that long)

As usual I did a good job of hiding the geocache (old ammo can) among the creek boulders along the edge of the river. Between the many boulders to step on and look under, and the slippery moss covering the boulders, I thought for sure one of us was going to take a tumble and break something important, like our wit !

Buddha statue through which an artesian well supplies water to community residents

We replaced the geocache unscathed, other than a few mosquito bites, and then meandered homeward finding a few geocaches on our way back to Maple Ridge.

We found our last few caches in the dark but even so, that was not a problem as our BAF (Big A** Flashlights) made it easy to find our way to the geocache area and then zero in on the cache itself.

Elbow Creek directly across the road from the Buddha statue

Though we were only out for three hours or so, we still enjoyed getting out of the house to experience the beautiful scenery so close to home.

Ruskin Hall in east Maple Ridge was built in 1922

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 VISITING QUAYSIDE AT NEW WESTMINISTER

ALL PICTURES FROM THE DAY CAN BE SEEN HERE ON MY PHOTO PAGE

The Fab Four, AKA myself, my "Handler" Annette, and brother Ken and wife Linda, waited out the Sunday morning rain by having breakfast at a local diner, then headed to New Westminster to visit the Quay (pronounced "key"). The Quay is an indoor public market containing gift stores, jewelry stores, craft sellers, food stands and a grocery store.

Today's visit was more about strolling the boardwalk before and after the market place, and seeing the latest buildings and parks as they are developed. 

The New West waterfront was once a run down commercial section of the city; over the years derelict warehouse were torn down and the land left vacant. A few years ago, an arsonist started a fire in the massive wooden pier which caused extensive damage and set back the city's community plans for the area.

Today, the pier has been rebuilt, residential high rises are separated by community park areas containing plenty of activity for little ones and for everyone else. Benches, lounging sculptures, extensive board walks, and clear views are accessed by city spaces and pathways from one end of the complex to the other. All in all, I'm guessing at 2 kms of boardwalk from the newer east end to the older west end now exists.

We enjoyed exploring the new areas and stated that we wouldn't mind living here; many outside cafes and restaurants have opened and the riverside view can't be beat!

After our walk we popped into the quay itself to have a coffee and do a quick shop at the grocery store where we picked up some fruit and veggies, all local of course, and headed back to our cars for our next destination.

Queens Park in New Westminster is a 75 acre park containing a baseball stadium, ice rink, spray park, tennis courts, and multiple buildings used for community functions. Established in 1887, this historic park is well loved by all of the Greater Vancouver residents.  Today we wanted to visit their outstanding Rose Garden as a soft wrap up to our day of walking the riverside boardwalk.

Constructed in 1981, this small garden harbours dozens of roses, along with some other native plants and shrubs. We spent an hour just enjoying the multitude of colours and smells of the flowers, a fine way to end the day.

Afterwards, it was time to head home and rest our feet and plan on where to go next time.