Day 17 - Chasing The Sun

I don't do the whole yin-yang thing, by which I mean I don't believe that the good things that happen in life are balanced out by the bad things (though I do love My Name Is Earl). However, by the law of averages, because of the number of amazing days we've had so far on this holiday, we were due a "bad" day, and this was probably it.

We woke up to rain in Revelstoke. We'd expected that, it was forecast, but we were hoping that travelling south to Nelson, we could catch up with the sun. Nelson is in the Kootenays region of British Columbia (it's pronounced koot-nayz, not kooteeneez as my Jawa wife pronounces it). Nelson is about 155 miles by road from Revelstoke, and approximately 120 miles further south, so it's getting down to the bottom of British Columbia. Google Maps estimated it as a 4 hour journey, which I thought we'd break up with a visit to the town of Sandon, once a thriving mining town, now an example of a North American ghost town.

Having filled His Majesty's tank with Esso Regular ("oh yah, those credit cards won't work in the pump if you're from... overseas"), we set off, with the rain coming to a stop and blue sky appearing, south along Highway 23. Give me an open road with beautiful scenery like Highway 23, a powerful and comfortable car like HM, no other traffic around me, and I will drive all day. The thirty-mile trip down to Shelter Bay, where we had to catch a ferry across the Upper Arrow Lake, was an absolute breeze. At Shelter Bay we parked up and waited about 25 minutes for the ferry to make it back across the lake and unload passengers from the other side, then we were shepherded on, the ramps raised, and the short trip across the lake began.

Before we reached Galena Bay on the other side, the rain had caught us up again, and as we disembarked I had to switch the windscreen wipers on. HM has an almost infinite array of intermittent wipe options, varying from once an Ice Age, to more rpm than a Formula 1 engine. I spent ages trying to find a comfortable wipe-speed, by which time we'd left the rain behind again.

We drove on down Highway 23, with Upper Arrow Lake on our right, providing beautiful views. At Nakusp we took Highway 6 east to New Denver ("Isn't there a New Denver in America?" "No, that's just Denver"). From there Highway 31A heads further east, and then a turn-off down a minor road is signposted towards Sandon. The sign points out that Sandon is a Heritage Site. They have to point that out, because most people have never heard of Sandon and don't know what it is (when we were there we met a couple from BC who hadn't known it existed before that day).

The minor road became a track that could only be called a road because part of it (and not the greater part) had a tarmac covering. Rounding a bend we surprised a deer, rooting around for food in the middle of the road. It looked up as we approached, watched us for a moment, and then twitched its ears as it heard a vehicle coming from the opposite direction. It bolted then, bounding with great agility up a steep incline and vanishing into the surrounding trees (pine, of course).

We got to the end of the track and there was a bridge and some dingy buildings and some old buses parked up. We crossed the bridge, drove past the buildings and buses and tried to find a carpark. A dirty sign suggested there might be a carpark in the offing, but we drove past it to another sign that affirmed it was the museum carpark. The clouds were starting to roll in again.

I'm going to have a bit of a pop at Sandon here. It's a dump. There are piles of scrap metal on show on the main thoroughfare. There are wrecked buses, bits of farm equipment, old engines in rows. In amongst all this mess are real exhibits; an old steam train that is being restored, old mining carts, old buildings that might or might not be of historical interest, but all overgrown with long grass and weeds. My guide book told us to go to the restored City Hall and pick up a walking tour guide book for two bucks. We got to City Hall and it was locked, a Post-It in the window saying, "BAK IN 5" [sic]. When we went back in 10, it was open, and there was a young lad behind the counter. I asked for a walking tour guide book, and he told me, "we're sold oot". Being "sold oot" of your guide book isn't acceptable, Sandon. The rest of City Hall was filled with over-priced history books, trivia unrelated to Sandon, and tat jewellery.

We left City Hall and walked up the hill a ways to the Sandon Museum, but met a couple who said that they'd met another couple who had said that the museum was full of nothing interesting, just rocks and glass. Looking through the window I believed them, so we gave the museum a miss. We walked on up to a couple of old wooden buildings that looked interesting, but they were just derelict and rotting. Earlier, by the carpark, we'd met a Danish couple who said they had been expecting a fully-restored "Wild West" town. I wasn't expecting that, but I was expecting something a bit more than old sheds.

Sandon could be so much more than this. The people we saw working there seemed to be working hard and with a passion, but they need more. I wanted to contribute by buying a guide book, and I might have bought more had there been a better infrastructure, but there wasn't. There were enough people visiting Sandon today to make me think something decent could be made of it. Come on, BC, sort something out.

Disappointed (I'd wanted something much more interesting and informative from Sandon), we set off back to New Denver and Highway 6 south... where we promptly got stuck in a traffic jam at Silverton caused, as we later found out, by a fallen tree. We were hungry, frustrated, and not going anywhere.

Twenty-five minutes later the jam cleared, we drove on, and stopped to eat our lunch at the first rest area we came across. We were overlooking the beautiful Slocan Lake, the sky was clearing, and things were starting to look good.

The final hour and a half to Nelson were an echo of the start of our journey earlier that day; a clear road and good driving. The sun was shining as we parked up outside our hotel, the Mountain Hound Inn, in the middle of town. We explored the town and got a feel for this pretty, bustling place, before eating an excellent meal at the Redfish Grill just down from our hotel. We talked about our day and realised that, though Sandon was a bit of a disappointment, it hadn't really been that bad a day. We also talked - briefly - about something our waitress Trista had said the night before, in Revelstoke. "If you like Canada, you should visit the Maritimes." Hmmm. The Maritimes. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island.

"What's so special about Prince Edward Island?", asked Sandra.
"It's famous for one particular shellfish," I answered. "Mussels".

You should have seen her eyes light up. Is this the germination of Project 2012?

Tomorrow, the Okanagan Valley, wine, and - hopefully - more sunshine.