• British Columbia (and nearby),  Hiking & Scrambling,  Okanagan,  Trip Reports,  Trips with Kids

    Cathedral Park: A Place from the Fairy Tales

    Cathedral Park was one of those places we always knew that one day we would go to. We passed the sign on the highway on all of our trips to the Okanagan and even camped once or twice in one of the recreational sites on the logging road leading to the trail head. But we also knew that the access was either long and boring or short and expensive. Since for a long time we didn’t want to do either, it was left at the bottom of the bucket list. Now, after having Neil, we had the ultimate excuse to finally catch the ride and to explore this magnificent place we had heard only…

  • British Columbia (and nearby),  Coquihalla,  Crosscountry Skiing,  Downhill Skiing,  Okanagan,  Trip Reports,  Trips with Kids

    SilverStar: The Ski Combo

    Google Maps claimed the drive would take five hours. I disagree, in fact it took about hundreds of hours, or at least this is how it felt. We’ve done this trip before, when I was pregnant, but it didn’t feel so long back then. I guess having a baby does change a few things. To break the long drive we stopped at Othello Tunnels, a nice place we discovered on our first bike trip along the Kettle Valley Railway. The tunnels are always impressive, no matter how many times we visit the place. We took a nice walk and had a picnic before continuing east. After a few hours we stopped…

  • Crosscountry Skiing,  Okanagan,  Trip Reports

    Vernon and Kamloops: Winter Wonderland of the Interior

    Finding somewhere to go over the Christmas break is always a challenge. Everyone is on vacation at the same time and therefore flights and everything related to traveling is more expensive. Things get even more complicated in the third trimester of a pregnancy since we wanted to avoid flights, long drives and downhill skiing is out of the picture for now. So we decided to stay ‘close to home’ this time. Then Tal, Gili’s brother, said he was coming for a visit, which is always nice. Since Tal was keen on doing some skiing, an activity he doesn’t get to do often due to living in Israel, and the local…

  • British Columbia (and nearby),  Hiking & Scrambling,  Manning Park,  Okanagan,  Trip Reports

    Three Brothers Mountain: and Cherry Picking Too

    We are obsessed with cherries. So obsessed that driving 400km away and five hours each way just to pick cherries doesn’t seem like a ridiculous idea to us. I think there is something exotic for us about cherries. I remember hearing stories from my grandmother about how she used to climb the family cherry tree in their backyard in Cologne, Germany, pre WWII days. She would sit for hours on a wide branch munching on the unlimited supply of cherries, spitting the pits into the Nazi neighbour’s yard… It always sounded like a fairy tale, cherries were almost unreal. Growing up in Israel we sure enjoyed many different types of fruit, but…

  • British Columbia (and nearby),  Cycling & Cycle Touring,  Okanagan,  Trip Reports

    Princeton-Keremeos Loop: Apples, Samosas and Plenty of Sunshine

    Thanksgiving long weekend offered another opportunity for a short getaway. While most Canadians were busy eating turkey and pumpkin pies, we were free to do as we wished, although we did eat a very good pumpkin pie. On Friday I worked very hard on baking eight pumpkin pies. We sold seven of them through Cherry on a Bike (our small baking business), and the eighth one was left for us. We took it with us on the trip and had a little Thanksgiving spirit too. When you live in BC you have a lot to be thankful for, but the weather is not necessarily always one of them. But having…

  • British Columbia (and nearby),  Cycling & Cycle Touring,  Okanagan,  Trip Reports

    Castlegar to Midway: Cycling the Columbia and Western Railway

    Gili and I are last minute people. If you ask us on Friday what our plans for the weekend are, we will probably say we’re not sure yet. Sometimes close to midnight we’ll decide where we are heading for the weekend. The plans might change completely on Saturday morning. This trip was different – we had set our minds on it for quite a while and planned it for the Canada day long weekend. Well, it wasn’t exactly a long weekend, since the holiday itself was on Tuesday. But that was even better we thought, no one will notice if we disappear for Monday as well, and then we will…

  • British Columbia (and nearby),  Coquihalla,  Cycling & Cycle Touring,  Okanagan,  Trip Reports

    Kettle Valley Railway: Exploring BC on Our First Cycle Touring Trip

    It was a Monday and it was raining in Vancouver. Gili  and I packed the car with two pairs of bikes, a children’s trailer, panniers, sleeping bags and mats, some food, and all the rest of the equipment that we needed for about 12 days of riding. It was about a six hour drive to a small town called Midway (midway across BC east to west) where we planned to start the ride from. After we passed Hope, the skies cleared and the sun was shining. We were on our way to ride the Kettle Valley Railway. Once upon a time there was a gold rush in British Columbia and…