A Spring Day in the North Okanagan



The Okanagan is blessed with a predictable four season climate, a hot and dry summer from June to September, a warm sunny fall that lasts into November, a winter that is cool enough to guarantee ample snow on its ski mountains and a reliable spring that greens up the valley in March while the snow lingers on the peaks.  By April spring is full-on and it is a glorious time to enjoy the valley.

I never tire of the jaunt down to Kelowna International Airport, a 30 minute drive from our doorstep in Vernon.  Highway 97 glides along  above lakes and cherry and peach orchards and at this time of the year, the hills wear the vibrant green of spring and are dotted with the Okanagan sun flowers (aka arrow-leaf balsam-root).  Pink and white blossoms dress the lines of fruit trees in the orchards  and Kalamalka Lake shows off its shades from deep indigo to light turquoise.  The views are simply gob-smacking.

On Sunday when returning from dropping off my husband at the airport I decided to take the slow way home.  I turned off the highway into Winfield on to Bottom Wood Lake Road.  I noticed a flow of pedestrians, mostly family groups, heading down toward the creek.  I followed and discovered the Kangaroo Creek Farm, a private farm that has been breeding kangaroos and wallabies for over 20 years and now opens their farm to the public, in April just on weekends from 10 to 2 (daily later in the season).  http://www.kangaroocreekfarm.com. 

Here you can pet kangaroos and wallabies, feed ducks, goats, and emu. There are pot belly pigs, peacocks, fancy chickens, and capybaras, the world's largest rodents that are from South America.  Visitors are asked for a $5 donation, the money is needed for insurance, staff and other expenses of opening the farm to the public.  There is no gift shop or junk food, its all about a hands-on experience with animals.



 Little kids were gingerly picking up ducklings, feeding wallabies, petting goats and capybaras.

In a shaded area near the entrance, toddlers, big kids and grandparents were taking turns holding baby wallabies, only recently out of their mothers' pouches, in cuddly flannelette bunting bags. I don't have any children to take but I'll be back.I think I'll take my 93 year old mother, she'll be delighted!

I continued north toward Wood Lake where the road swings east and then climbs up the bank along the east side of the lake.  The top was down on my little Miata and the sharp whine of a plane caught my attention.  I stopped to watch a couple remote controlled planes twisting through the air then continued along through the orchards on Oyama Road.

 I could hear the meadow larks and smell the fresh earth. The lake views were distracting me, and had to make myself concentrate on the road as it wound around corners and undulated up and down along the lake.
When I got to the little isthmus between Wood and Kalamalka Lakes, where most of the community of Oyama sits, I drove up and down the few residential streets, lined with tidy but ordinary homes, a community not touched too much my the monster house phenomena so common in the very prettiest parts of the valley.  I discovered Pioneer Park where two kayakers were carrying their kayak back to their car while a couple canoeists were putting their boat in the water.

With the Dire Straits cranked up and my hair tangling in the wind, I continued north on Highway 97 toward Vernon, turning off onto Kalamalka Lakeview Drive at the 'Welcome to Greater Vernon' sign. 

With everything that I had seen, I was still mesmerized by the view of Rattle Snake Point in Kalamalka Provincial Park and the verdant Coldstream Valley that stretches into the white topped Monashees to the east. 

 

I drove into that scene by taking College Way, linking onto Kalamalka Road and heading east to Lavington.
Here I visited friends who had invited me to come and see their newborn lambs. 


It was a lovely end to a lovely spring day in the North Okanagan.