Day 18 - Nelson, BC

Tuesday 21st June.

It was raining when we woke up this morning and I think we heard some thunder too but we decided we go out and get some geocaches anyway. We are very near to getting our 2000th cache and want to try and reach that milestone by the time we reach Vancouver.

There are old rail lines turned into hiking trails outside Nelson near Slocan River and Lake so we thought it would be fun to head out and see how many we could find.

We walked for about 3 km when we came to the village of Crescent Valley - a small community on the main road. Excitingly it gave us the opportunity for a coffee break and some limited wifi so we could look at a map to see where we were.

We had fun finding some nearby caches right next to the river where an old lumber mill had once been, you could still see its ruins. We also had the chance to trespass across someone's back yard when we noticed that we either retraced our steps for a couple of km or sneaked quickly across someones land to get back to the road! Hahahaha - I think we got away with it!

Near the coffee shop was a kayaking rental. So we went in to enquire about hiring one for about an hour or so. I think it was a slightly more serious sporting set up than we are used to and they seemed quite shocked at the thought of letting us loose in the water - in fact quite shocked that they had any customers that looked like us - so we left!

We then headed off to the dam on Slocan Lake where there were a series of 9 caches arranged in a sort of circle. It was lovely walking through the trees along by the lake. There used to be a whole community here working for the hydro electrical plant with housing for the employees but then the company changed it's mind and moved all the houses. We could see basements and gardens but nothing else was left.

We had a great hike and didn't see any bears, something we were conscious about most of the time, the lake was clear and calm and the woods had a range of evergreen trees that concealed many a small plastic container!

Haha - this is our hotels business centre!

Yes and we are back in the woods looking for caches.

Pretty pink flowers, we also saw someone collecting Saskatoon berries.

We passed this small community which looked interesting.

Huge dandelion seed heads

A small cache and a huge tyre.

A view of Slocan river beach.

Finding a cache in the old mill ruins

A terrible photo but we were able to watch a nest of osprey
on the telephone poles.

Look at this cool geocache. I picked up the log and then ignored it.
Gary picked it up and spotted the tiny geocache,

A great slogan!

Can you see the geocache?
We both walked under it several times before we found it!

A great view towards the dam.

Lots of trees.

Our hotel in Nelson. It was built at the end of the 19th century with lots of turrets and balconies but then someone renovated it and removed them all. The downstairs is still quite Arts and Crafty.