Day 12
July 28, 2014Day 12 - Hedley to Osoyoos 70km
No puns.
Waking up in the valley was such a treat, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever camped in. I cooked some soup and tried to make some cheese balls with the last of my bread and aged cheddar, the soup was great but I burnt my balls in the process…the cheese balls were ok too.
The sun was hot and the pavement reflective! Aaron and I headed for the road and made our way to Keremeos, the place to be for fruit pickers! I’ve never passed by so many fruit stands and vineyards in my life. Naturally we stopped and grabbed some cherries for the tough ride ahead. (the tough ride was a 500m ride up hill in a desert!….which is nothing compared to the next climb we have to do)
We also stopped for some Thai food at Benja! Shortly after leaving Keremeos I was stopped on the side of the road taking a photo, Aaron was ahead of me and going around a bend. I took off to try and catch up to him but realized my back tire was completely flat…Great, my first flat and it happens in the desert. Up until now I have never changed or patched a tire in my life, I’ve only ever seen it done once. I knew that Aaron was starting the climbs and by the time he noticed I wash’t behind him he wouldn’t be going back down those hills only to climb them again. I flagged a car down and asked them to pass on the message to him that I would be fixing a flat and to just carry on without me. What an experience, getting all of my panniers off and finding my patch kit. Taking the wheel apart and just having a good ol’ learning experience!
After a successful job on the tire I was eager to hit up those hills and catch up to Aaron.
What a climb…drank all of my water by the time I met up with Aaron again, he had been waiting for 45 minutes in some shade! A few cars had actually stopped to tell him that his buddy was on the side of the road, those were the people that I flagged down and they just kept going…
After making it into the city of Osoyoos we started our adventure to find a place to stay, everything was fully booked. All of the campsites would rather have an “RV only” overflow rather than a cyclist with a tent, they make more money that way…We rode around for about 20km until we stopped at a gas station to get something cold to drink. While leaning our bikes up against the wall a man named Willy started to chat with us about our trip. When he asked us where we were going to stay tonight we said that what we were trying to figure that out.
Willy was staying at the Nk’Mip RV park with three sites all together. He invited Aaron and I to set up our tents on one of the sites! An amazingly kind thing for a stranger to do. When we arrived at his RV’s he gave us each an ice cold beer, always welcomed after a hot day riding! We set up our stuff and headed into town to get some food as well as some beer for Willy.
After perhaps a few too many we shut down for the night.
I fell asleep with my headlamp on, terrible thing for your head.
Let’s have another bright idea…
