Day 6

Staying somewhere with no kitchen facilities meant that this morning we had to go hunting for breakfast. We managed to pack up and leave the room before 10.30, an early start comparatively. With Timmy's just over the road there was no competition on where to eat, and we were able to assess the local population. We were the youngest patrons by an easy 50 years, as it seemed like this was the place to be to meet up with friends when you've turned 80. We left as soon as possible, our joints suddenly feeling sprightly and unused. Or first stop of the day was the tourist info centre, where out turns out you have to work if your not quite old enough to Jon the coffee shop crowd. The guy behind the counter was worse then useless, and we retreated to the wine shop area next door to gather some advice. While unable to help with the logistics ( hotels, tour companies still operating etc ), the lady here was at least able to recommend some wineries for different things in the area we were looking at, and armed with a map and list of must see locations, we headed out the door to head north to the Naramata bench wine area. Luckily this area housed a winery I already knew which would be an easy start to the day.

After an interesting scenic route, Clare managed to navigate us to the right road and we were off over the hills above the lake. Beautiful scenery led us to the first cellar door - unfortunately only open for sales but no tastings. We hit the road, making our way south again, until we reached Lake Breeze Winery. This was Clare's first experience of Canadian wine tasting, and despite the small portions and the well placed spittoon she could now see why it was better to not drive between too many of them. Nothing here grabbed us enough for a purchase, and we moved on. La Frenze was next on the list, and on opening the door we were welcomed by the most amazing view over the lake. Such a good view in fact, that it had been memorialised on the 100 dollar Canadian bill, as shown (in photocopied form only) on the wall. We were eventually able to tear ourselves away from the large glass window view to the assistant who had entered behind us. The staff here are so used to guests bring drawn to the window they now know to just wait. We were able to try a bunch more wines here - and were unable to resist buying some to have again. Reaching the limit of tastings for the morning, it was time to head back to Penticton for lunch. We parked and assessed our options, passing over a small burger shack we would later on discover was to be featured on a Canadian TV show about places you should eat at! Doh. Instead we opted for the far cheaper, far easier Tim Hortons (twice in 1 day! Shock horror) before setting off south for Oliver.

Ether tourist information guide had been so useless this morning we had no idea on places to stay or where everything was located, so decided to start with a drive through view of Oliver and its wineries. Having passed right through, and checked a few possible options out -  we drove on south to Osoyoos.

Ever closer to the US border, the landscape was subtly changing, more deserty less rocky mountainy. We spotted the tourist information office here and knowing it couldn't be worse ventured inside. The girl in here was much younger ( she'd lived in Banff in 2000 - showing her to be mid to late 30's!) and infinitely more helpful. As both a food fan and a wine fan she was able to point out a few good food/drink places and knew much better the accommodation options. We left with a list of places to visit, not just tomorrow but over the next few days as we continued travelling, and a few hopeful accommodation spots to. While we were down it, it would have been rise to not visit a winery... And the first and only First Nation winery on Canada was just around the corner. We did a short tasting here, very aware of the driving left to do. But it was such a great place with some interesting wines we decided to come back and do a tour of the operation later in the week.

We headed North again, back to Oliver to Silver Sage which came highly recommended as a winery/b&B. Unfortunately, there was no vacancy here so we did our final tasting of the day testing out their interesting and different fruit wines. With time marching on, we started calling the other 'nice' b&B's in the area only to find they were all booked out. Despite the fact it was now off season and everything else was closed and struggling... They were all still booked out! We headed down the main road for Oliver, resigned that we wouldn't be able to stay close enough to the wineries that we could walk between then tomorrow when we spotted a motel. Not as nice as a b&b maybe, but just close enough for walking and we were able to get a room with a kitchen.  Dinner sorted.

While I loaded up our new time lapse video photos for editing, Clare set to plotting out where we would be visiting tomorrow. Convinced the location was suitable - we got hold of the motel manager to book on for a second night and settled down for the night.

The internet here isn't good enough for todays photos to be uploaded and edited, but my phone was able to handle the blog post. Tomorrow, we'll cram in a heap more wineries before moving on on Wednesday.

Chin chin!