Bedouin Soundclash - "When the Night Feels my Song"

I'm on the rocky road,
Heading down off the mountain slope,
And as my steps echo (echo) louder than before

Another day is done,
Say good-bye to the setting sun,
See what I found, turn back to the ground just like before

And hey hey hey, hey hey hey (hey!)
Hey Beautiful day (hey! hey!)
Hey Beautiful day
Hey, hey hey hey...

- Bedouin Soundclash - "When the Night Feels my Song"

Pritchard to Mara- 104 kilometres / 64 miles

I was pretty sure that the TransCanada and the CP Rail trains both went directly through the campground that night..! Our campground was pretty much on the highway which made for an interesting evening of hearing trucks downshift and trains haul their loads through the mountains 24/7. Having said that, I still managed to sleep relatively well and was looking forward to the day ahead – blue skies, delicious breakfast and a bit of a challenging day up into and out of Salmon Arm.

I had arranged to meet up with my Aunt and Uncle who live enroute in Salmon Arm with Brendan, Andrew and John to have a tour of their gorgeous horse breeding farm (they are breeders of Oldenburg Dutch and Canadian warmblood horses). I knew that it was going to be a bit of a tough climb heading past Chase and into Salmon Arm so Brendan and I had arranged to meet at the Tim Hortons at the top of the hill in Salmon Arm and then head to the farm. Little did we know that Salmon Arm is pretty much all hills and once you get up to the top of one, there is another waiting for you just round the corner.. and there is a Tim Hortons on every hill. So, poor BC ended up having about 10 cups of coffee and 5 donuts at the wrong Timmys. Ah well..!

It was great to see my Aunt and Uncle – their farm is incredible and their home is my ‘dream home’. It’s set in the heart of the mountains just off of the Trans Canada outside of Salmon Arm, overlooking a huge rolling green valley which provide a home to about 30 warmblood horses. There is a large riding arena, stables and an area set aside for dressage etc. It was nice to have the opportunity to combine the trip with a family visit. We headed out to the field where my Uncle was cutting hay and had a chat with him as well before continuing on our way. By this point it was about 30 degrees and incredibly, incredibly hot….! BUT, better too hot than too cold and thank goodness it hasn’t rained on us… yet.

Andrew and I made an emergency pit stop outside of an old Texaco station and stocked up on OJ, oatmeal cookies and more water. It’s always tiring when you look down at your odometer and realize that it is already nearly 4pm and you still have about 40 kms left to cycle that day to get to camp. The good part of getting in a bit late was that it had cooled off a bit by this stage and we also had pulled off of the TransCanada onto 97B which was much quieter and more relaxing. I find that on the TransCanada you always have to be aware of what is beside you, in front of you and also behind you. Whilst the shoulder is generally quite good it can also be a bit unpredictable with pieces of rubber and some glass. The other good part about the day was there was a rumor that there was a pool at this campsite – and man, did I ever need one..!! That and a very, very cold beer..! Mmmmmmmmmmmm….

We pulled in at about 5:30 after a nice downhill and a quick stop to chat with Tony and Darlene who were also taking a slow day. That and the fact that they’d stopped about 10kms back where Tony had a craving and bought a watermelon from a roadside market…. which he was carrying back to camp..!

The best beer that I’ve had in ages was handed to me ceremoniously by Terry as we pulled in. It was once of those moments when you really, really, really cant think of anything more refreshing than the cold beer. I owed him one for that big time..! The campsite was lovely – set in a lush pine forest and with loads of picnic tables in the sun and just a few minutes away from Mara Lake. I could already smell a fabulous dinner being cooked up by the Galley Crew. We put up our tents, had a fab dinner and I took a well earned swim. A super relaxing day. I fell asleep to BC calling out from his tent, ‘Hey, is it me or is there a skunk around’… at which point I realized that the motorcycle gang camped near to our tent were smoking copious amounts of pot..!

Lesson Number 1: Learning to Retrace your steps at 3am

As I am writing this entry 2 days later I can also share a bit of an ‘incident’ that I had that night. I woke up at about 3am to go to the washroom. This is always a frustrating feeling because once you start thinking about it then you will definitely have to ‘go’ – no matter how hard you try to ignore it… nothing is worse than the prospect of leaving a nice, cosy warm sleeping bag to walk through a cold, dark forest, through wet grass and to use a dark toilet area.


My imagination started to run wild as I made my way back to the tent and started to realize that it was super dark and I could hardly see a thing (not helped by the fact that I wasn’t wearing my contacts/ glasses). I breathed a huge sigh of relief as I saw my tent and was just reaching for the zipper to open it when the headlights of a car passing along the highway happened to bounce off of the shiny chrome rim of…. a motorcycle..!!!! I was about .5 seconds away from crawling into the motorcycle gang tent..! I nearly wet my pants (again). I am pleased to report that after that incident I did manage to find my tent and was exceptionally happy (and relieved!) to be safe and sound in my own sleeping bag..!!