Road Trip, Day 7 - Sun 16 Nov: Sandpoint, ID, to Penticton, BC

Time to dust off the passports again today as we are heading into Canada - this time into BC. Penticton BC, to be specific:

We didn't even notice where we crossed the state line into Washington. I wanted to take the Flowery Trail Route but made the mistake to just follow the GPS blindly, which spat us out on a two spoor gravel track.

 It was fun taking the little Rav on probably its very first and also its very last dirt outing. Apart from this and the usual 23 or so coffee stops along the way, nothing much else was really worth noting, apart from reaching the border. Its always exciting for me to go through immigration.

Controle frontalier. Bounjour. 

The most beautiful place on ea . . .?

My friend Hein who worked in Osoyoos as a GP mentioned to me that BC has a proper wine region that stretches north from the border here with the US, along the Okanagan Valley. I really didn't expect the area to be this well developed in terms of being an established wine route, so I was pleasantly surprised!

We are here

 The Oliver/Osoyoos wine region has more than 30 wineries, and people have only been making wine here since the late 60's /early 70's. Just as with the Niagara wine region where I didn't really know what to expect, I kept an open mind and we decided to pull into Hester Creek Winery for a quick, late lunch and a tasting.  

Which way Douglas Green? ;-)

View from the tasting room

The tasting room. Or "taste bar" as they referred to it here.

Terrafina Restaurant

Stop snapping away woman! Lets go taste some wine!!

I was really impressed with their wines. I am certainly no connoisseur when it comes to wine, but at least I can tell when I like a wine. and I really liked some of the stuff they made. Brenda did too! We ended up getting a bottle each of their Character Red and Chardonnay.

From here we were advised to visit Platinum Bench Winery. Basically a one man operation, but Murray the owner is really passionate about his wines and entertained us with all sorts of interesting stories about the region.

First go pray, then go drink.

Platinum Bench

HO! Japanese tourist at Platinum bench. 

 After Platinum Bench the straight road to Penticton became a winding road to Penticton.