There’s Darth Vader playing the violin – Day 11: Quesnel – 100 Mile House

[wickesy]

It was another early start today so we were up at 6:45, cases were outside the door at 7:15 and we were away by 8:15.

As we were making our way to our first stop a deer crossed the road just ahead of us. As the coach stopped a baby deer came out of the trees, walked into the middle of the road, looked at us and stopped. We sat there watching it and it was obvious it didn’t know what to do even though its Mum was waiting on the other side. At first it went to go back, then it went to go over to its Mum, then it walked up the road a bit. This carried on for a minute or so until eventually it went back to the same side of the road it had come from. We carried on and hoped that Mum and baby would meet up again after we had gone.

First stop of the morning was Jack O’Clubs lake



before making our way on to Barkerville. The town is named after William ‘Billy’ Barker, an Englishman who was the first person to find gold there in the 1860’s. The town is almost exactly as it was in those days and is now a major tourist attraction. The highlight of the day was a guided tour of the town by a group of actors playing the part of men and women who lived and worked in the town at the height of the gold rush.



After the tour we had a walk up the street and stopped off in the bakery for a cup of coffee and a coke. We then had a wander around the rest of the shops before returning to the bakery for a cinnamon roll for lunch. There was a chance to do some gold panning but as they were asking $6.00 for the privilege we decided not to bother.

We left Barkerville at 12:45 and made our way to Williams Lake where we went into Tim Horton’s for a Maple cream doughnut and a hot chocolate.

We arrived at 100 Mile House (so called because it is 100 miles from the start of the road in Lillooet) and checked into our hotel, the Red Coach Inn at 4:55. Once the bags had arrived I had a quick shave (I hadn’t had one for a few days ) and we made our way down to the bar where we had a quick drink before enjoying the buffet the hotel had laid on especially for us. There were the usual salads, a pasta dish, beef stroganoff and a chicken pot pie on offer so I started with a salad and then had the beef stroganoff with a slice of chocolate cake for dessert.

After dinner we had a whisky each to round the night off and spent some time relaxing in the room before retiring to bed at 9:20 ready for another fairly early start tomorrow.

Tomorrow: Off to the mountains