Penticton, bc

In mid July 2020, Bojana and I did a four day road trip to the Penticton area. Pencticton is a nice town in the lower part of the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia, situated between the Okanagan and Skaha lakes, which makes for an astonishing view from the mountains.

We left Whistler on a Friday morning, It was a smooth ride until we hit heavy traffic from Langley to Chilliwack. Ironically, the hardest part from that stretch was finding access to a public washroom. After succeeding at what seemed to be an impossible mission, we got on the road again. 

We made a quick picnic stop at the Bridal Falls Provincial Park before driving up the large hill toward Manning Park. We experienced a few car problems on the way up, but made it. Following a well deserved rest for our Passat, we kept going until we reached Keremeos, enjoying the changes of scenery from a rainforest climate to a more arid, desert-likeecosystem. While in Keremeos, we stopped at the Mariposa fruit market to stock up on some cherries, dry apple crisps and a peach pie. This definitely added some excitement to the trip.

Following this, we made it to our main destination: Penticton. We quickly checked in at our hotel and went for a sunset walk on the shore of Okanagan Lake, before catching dinner at the Hooded Merganser. We had the chance to be seated by a window with a lakeside view. It sure was quite a dining experience, especially during the golden hour. After a nice meal and a few glasses of wine, we made it back to our hotel room and called it a night.

The next morning, we spoiled ourselves with a nice room service breakfast and then we walked around the farmers market. We got some more apple crisps, spinach rolls, sesame buns, baba ganoush and hummus. We walked along the main street for a little while, did a bit of browsing in a few record stores and got more fresh baked goods at a Czech bakery called Petrasek, followed by lunch at the Benchmark Market just outside of downtown.

The afternoon consisted of Bojana going shopping on her own while I spent some time at my favourite city attraction, the skatepark. Pencticton has a very good one and it’s also situated right on the shore of Okanagan Lake. After deliberating for a couple hours about who is the boss between me and my skateboard, Bojana and I met again and decided to head up the mountains to our next lodging destination.

We rented a cabin at The Lost Moose Cabins & Campground for the remainder of the weekend. It is situated on the East side of town, above the Penticton stock car race track. The place comes with spectacular views overlooking the city and the lakes. We walked around for a while, taking in our surroundings before dinner. We didn’t leave the area for the rest of the trip, and enjoyed quite a few walking trails since the campground is located right across from Ellis Canyon Park. Most of the area was affected by a forest fire back in 1994. The mix of rain and sun coming in and out all day made for a great afternoon of diffused light for photography. We got to enjoy a great sunset, and the clouds ended up clearing out so I could get a few pictures of the stars.

To conclude this nice getaway, we still had to face a few car difficulties. I tried to get the car checked by a mechanic on the way out of town and see what was going on, but nobody was available. After talking to about 8 different garages, we decided to try our luck and got on the road. It turned out that we had a blown-up turbo, so what was supposed to be a 5-hour drive would end up taking 9 hours. The car struggled, doing 40 km/hr uphill and blowing black smoke the entire way. It was quite a stressful endeavour.

I also brought a film camera with me that one of my good friends gave me a few summers ago, but I later found out that it was a bust. It was so disappointing when I saw that the film came out blank after I developed it. I had more typical photos that represented a trip to the Okanagan on that roll, like photos of orchards, roadside fruit markets, people hanging out on the shore of Okanagan lake etc. I also blew up an external hard drive, which I don’t want to elaborate too much on, but which was one of the most frustrating things to deal with where my photography is concerned. Let’s say a lot of hard lessons were learnt along the way.

Despite some of the difficulties, we had a great time and we still talk often of heading back to the Lost Moose cabin for another getaway. I hope you enjoyed my story and the photo gallery below. Please feel free to leave a comment or share if you liked it.

Thank you for reading,
Jonathan Turbide

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