Kelowna

Kelowna is by all accounts a pretty sleepy city of about 120,000 residents in the middle of the Okanagan Valley in Southern Central BC. It is situated on the banks of Lake Okanagan and is joined to the city of Westbank on the opposite side by a floating bridge. It is fast growing as a retirement destination as it has a generally warmer drier climate for three seasons than the coast, although the winters are colder. Familes are also moving this way from Vancouver for the slower pace of life and considerably more affordable real estate.

RE/MAX hosted a training course at the Grand Okanagan Resort Hotel which is situated right on the waterfront of Lake Okanagan, on the edge of downtown Kelowna. RE/MAX Western Canada's headquarters are based in Kelowna hence the training is held in this city too.

This is the Grand Okanagan Resort Hotel

Below is a view of Waterfront Park, which runs between the 'downtown' area (use the term loosly) and the lake.

The photo above shows the sandy beach at Waterfront Park, with the floating bridge in the background. The image below shows a closer view of the bridge.
Below is the 'downtown' area of Kelowna. It's a sleepy little town which appears to pretty much close at about 6pm ! However, parking is free and you can take a pick of the spaces !

The photo above shows the marina, with the Grand Okanagan Hotel in the background. Below is another view of the marina.
Another view of the Grand Okanagan Hotel from across the lake.
More views of the lake and surrounding countryside.

Driving to Kelowna

A somewhat belated post....... In April I has required to attend a training course at the RE/MAX Western Canada headquarters in Kelowna. Although it's about a 5 hour drive from Vancouver it was more accessible for me than other members of the course as the Kelowna division covers as far afield as Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

The next post will show a few pics from Kelowna itself, but this is just a few snaps of the scenic drive. The drive is also helped by big good quality roads and hardly any traffic !

Street Legal

From one wild beast to another....... Charlie is now fully licensed.

It is a requirement in Vancouver to license your dog. We had been slack at getting Charlie licensed but he's fnally done ! The license fees vary considerably from cheap if neutered to expensive if not neutered. Charlie has been fixed but unfortunately we didn't have any official paperwork to prove it. Charlie of course had some physical evidence but we weren't ready to march him into the council offices to show him off - we had his dignity to think of.

We did manage to get a 'neutered license' eventually with the help of Charlies UK Pet Passport and a bit of expert Passport alteration thanks to David.

Charlie can be seen here proudly wearing his shiny new heart-shaped tag 'Number 6256'.

However Charlie assures us 'he is not a number, he is a free dog'.

Coyote

These are terrible quality images but nonetheless I did just manage to snap this coyote as it tried to work out how to use the pedestrian crossing opposite our house.

Coyotes are commonly found in and around North Vancouver particularly at this time of year when they are looking for food to feed their young. Although they wouldn't normally attack adult humans, they do consider cats, small dogs and children as fair game so you definately have to be careful.

These photos were taken at about 7.30pm from the living room window while waiting for David to return from work, so we'll keep an eye open over the next few weeks and try and get some better pictures.

The Last Few Tofino Pics

These are the last few random Tofino photos that we have, a selection of people, dogs & views.

Eagles

The BC coastline is famous for it's eagles although we've not yet had a good opportunity to photograph one when we've been close. We did see a few circling around the beach in Tofino although we were at some distance.

Sunsets

Being on the far West Coast of Canada, the coastline at Tofino boasts some pretty impressive sunsets. We were very lucky for our few days that the weather was so good we were able to enjoy some.

Tofino's Beaches

We visited three of the five beaches in Tofino. They were predominately sandy, flat and very very big. The other great thing was how quiet they were as seen in these images.

Cooling Off

Too much running around on the beach can make a boy hot.