Post Canada day trip

Up to 1750 km driven, wandered around mountain playground of our neigboring province, the so-called Land of Kootenay Rockies a.k.a Valley of a Thousand peaks in SW of British Columbia. More than 400 litre of gasoline was consumed by our SUV to drive along more less a 150 km winding narrow road cruising the 100 km long Kootenay Lake. Almost 31 towns were passed and 20 places located in some of the towns were visited from lakes, water fall, hot springs, Japannese gardens, campground, orchards and various historical sites from local museums, the biggest surviving sternwheeler, abandoned 'ghost mining town', to Japanesse Canadian internment site.

About 7 days, 6 nights were spent and nomadically stayed in 4 different towns for the sake of experiencing different things from our routine daily life. From budget motel in the middle of quite downtown of Cranbrook, feel-like-home hostel as I can cook in full kitchenette (Ainsworth), neighbored by hot spring pool and pure natural hot springs cave, a quite cabin with valley view of an agricultural town of Creston to an affordable cozy family country inn in Fernie, nestled in the Elk Valley, famed as a destination town of all year round outdoor sport lovers of water rafter, skiers, snowboarder and mountain bikers. And…as always posted in every tourist spots, wherever you go on this our lovely planet, only footprints left but we are welcomed to take as much as experience or memories from those places. Enjoyed the warmest lake in Invermere, barbeque lunch in the wonderful campground surrounded by a lake in New Denver, cozily soaked in silica rich hot spring pool and cave in Ainsworth, cruised the longest free ferry ride in the world (Balfour – Kootenay Bay) in breeze and crispy wind blowing along the lake, had a stroll at the ferry harbour in one misty morning waiting for ferry arrival, watching geese, seagulls and ducks by the lakeshore, took a stroll down the 100 foot high Marysville waterfalls, just located in backyards of some resident in Kimberley, took train ride to the historic Sullivan base metal underground mine in Kimberley, made Rafee's day even so memorable, then stunned by the sights, sounds, smells of all happenings in the last century that have been recreated on the world's oldest surviving passenger sternwheeler of SS Moyie historical site in Kaslo, and lastly a meaningful visit at the Nikkei Memorial Internment Centre in New Denver, appreciated how the Japanese Canadians who were stripped of their civil rights, impacted by Pearl Harbour booming in 1942, forced to relocate from their coastal BC homes to camps or lived in shacks of mountainous regions in BC, and other provinces. All of those, what we got …. unforgottable moments ....

--- some more detail of our travelogue and photologues will be posted as soon as time available to write and upload ----