Thursday 4 June 2015

Day 20 - Salmon Arm to Ashcroft

Today we drove from Salmon Arm to Ashcroft, stopping off at Kamloops for lunch.

Wet wet wet. We woke up to rain, we had lunch in the rain and drove all day in the rain - until we got to Cache Creek where they had some pretty bad floods last week. The roads there are a bit messy but it looks like they survived.

One of the bridges at Ashcroft.

I attempted to filim (private joke, later) some trains in the rain at the Notch Hill Horseshoe Curve and at Notch Hill and Kamloops, and the footage turned out OK - using the back door of the SUV as an umbrella. However the bright cloudy skies tend to muck the scene up a bit.

Upon arrival at Ashcroft I was concerned to learn that the person I spoke to about the booking no longer worked there and he'd stuffed up my reservation - even though I'd talked to him personally and confirmed everything just a week before. Instead of two rooms with two queen beds, he'd reserved one room with 2 single beds and a cot.

The new owner managed to give us that and two additional rooms with a queen in each. Lawrie and Grant got the singles, and if they think they'll fall out of bed, then they can push them together...

David will be pleased that for one night of this trip he won't have to sleep with a pillow over his head to block out the noise of the aircon and my snoring.

Accommodation sorted, we went on the hunt for some rail action. I took the guys down to the end of Evans Road - unchartered territory as Google street view only goes about half way down this road. We went past one bridge, which I already knew about, and at the end of the road we came across another bridge (both Canadian National). Both railroads are mere metres apart here so it was pretty easy to film either.

From this location alone I filmed (filimed) 6 trains and a Herzog work unit (in the space of about 2 hours) that had equipment that we assumed was used for replacing culvets. It was going really slow. At one stage three CN trains passed through only 5 minutes apart - it was all on.

I decided to change locations back to the other bridge that was on CN tracks, and was rewarded with two CP trains behind me - filmable) followed by a CP coal train using CN track. Don't know why.

Finally I called it quits at about 7 pm and we went on the hunt for an eatery. The only place we could find was their RSA until at the last minute I remembered that the only other motel in town also had a restuarant - saved by the bell - otherwise it would have been a 15k trip back to Cache Creek.

No internet at this place - never mind. Four more sleeps then a plane ride home. Tomorrow it's the 3.75 hour drive (plus stops) to Coquitlam, part of greater Vancouver.

Oh, the filim thing. The server at the restuarant was new and had only just moved to Ashcroft - we were asking her about local stuff and she did her best to answer the questions, but she also explained that the new X-Files movie was being filimed here - there was a crashed space ship and everything.  Filimed ? She repeated the word again - Yes, they're making a filim. Never mind. She's from Vancouver Island...

PS - We drove past a farm that was flying a New Zealand flag - I gave them a toot.

EJ

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