Wine tasting that I can remember this time

I have photographic evidence to prove that I have been wine tasting before. Andy also did a blog on it which can be found here. I can’t really remember any of it.

We arrived in Kelowna from Harrison Hot Springs and had a wine tasting tour booked starting at 1pm. Our tour guide, Dagmar, was waiting for us at our RV park, so after a quick check-in, we were in the back of the mini bus and off. Dagmar had another 2 couples to collect en-route, who turned out to be Sharon and Michelle (not a lesbian couple as we first thought) and Haydn and Laura.

Dagmar was brilliant as a tour guide. She was retired and both her and her husband work for a wine touring company. She asked us the right questions that got all 6 of us chatting to each other about where we were from and why we were here.

There were 3 wineries planned. The first one was called Mission Hill and was easily the biggest and most impressive. There was a very organised, hour long tour that Dagmar had booked us onto. Now, I could bore you all by telling you that white wine should be served between 10 and 15 degrees and that red wine should be served between 13 and 18 degrees. I could also bang on about how the thicker the grape means the darker the red wine. Or, I could send you all to sleep by letting you know that the older vines yield less grapes, but the are much more flavoursome. But you’ll be glad to know I won’t ramble on about any of that.

After a short video about how the winery started and grew, we were shown around the place to see the vineyards.

Cazzie loving the scenery

After a quick visit to the cellar to see 1000’s of American and French Oak barrels, we were off to the wine tasting session where we were taught how to taste wine. It’s all about rinsing the pallet, swilling the wine in your glass and slurping the wine in your mouth to get all the flavours. It was a lot of fun – even though we didn’t get that much wine!

The wine was ready and waiting for us, complete with a very unused spitting bucket!

This was a really lovely place to visit, but it all felt a bit impersonal as there were 22 people in our group. Nevertheless, we were so impressed with the wines we tasted, we bought a couple of bottles. I did have a Pinot Noir in my hand, but Dagmar said I should wait and buy a bottle from the next place – and who was I to argue?

The next port of call was Quails’ Gate. This was a much smaller winery, where the tasting took part in a corner of the wine shop. As there was only our group taking the tasting we got a much better, personal service. This is where we learnt that the best wines come from older vines matured in brand new oak barrels. Another fact was that you should ALWAYS decant red wine no matter how cheap. The only red wine that doesn’t need decanting is Pinot Noir.

We were given the chance to have a wander around the place, so after buying the Pinot Noir here (Dagmar was right, it was the best Pinot Noir I have tasted) we took a step outside for a few photos.

Final port of call was an organic winery called Kalala. It was a 10 min drive away and we were all now a few glasses to the good, so the journey was a lot of fun. We arrived at Kalala just in time to see some harvesting taking place.

We were allowed to try these grapes out and they were so juicy and tasty.

We tried another 8 wines here, including an ice wine which is a very sweet dessert wine made from grapes that are picked and crushed when the temperature hits –8 degrees.

Overall, it was a top day. The 6 of us decided to meet up after dinner for some beers at the local dive called Blue Gator. It’s not often I walk into a bar and everyone else is more drunk than I am, but this was the case here. Everyone was smashed and dancing to the amateur blues night that takes place every Sunday. Cazzie and I couldn’t take our eyes off most of the people here as they bounced their way from the bar to the dance floor and back again. It was a brilliant laugh! We did our best to play catchup, but there wasn't enough time before closing.

Kelowna is a brilliant place with red hot summers and cold winters meaning you can spend half your year sunbathing and the other half skiing. There is a buzzing nightlife too with a pretty good casino thrown in. Perfect. The views across the 135kms long Okanagan Lake aren’t bad either!

If you are ever in the region, this place is a must.

All the pictures can be found here.

Stuoobs

xxx

Whale watching and attempting to bike ride!

Our first port of call was Vancouver Island which is situated, as you would expect, off the coast of Canada near Vancouver. It did mean getting a ferry across which took abut 90 mins.

Our RV park was situated about 15 mins outside Victoria, which is the capital of the island. Arrival time was about 7.30pm, so we plugged in and settled in for the night. As this was our 3rd night in Canada, we were still a touch jetlagged so it was an early night.

The plan for the following morning was to go whale watching in the Pacific Ocean, so we hopped on the local bus, which dropped us off right in the centre of Victoria. After a short walk and we arrived at Orca Spirit tours which is where we met Geoff, our very cool captain / tour guide for the day, and the 4 other shipmates who had signed up for the tour. Once we had been fitted up with our lifejackets, we were off.

Cazzie in a very fetching life jacket!

So we were off. Once we have obeyed the speed limits in the harbour, we reached our cruising velocity of 55 mph and started our search. Captain Geoff was constantly on the CB radio, walkie talkie and mobile phone speaking to all other boats in the area, sharing information about where the whales were. Before we found our whales, we stopped off to view the sea lions that were all gathered on a large rock.

These guys weigh about 1 tonne each!

The radio then buzzed with news that there were 5 humpback whales in the area so it was full speed ahead! These humpback whales only appear off the Island for 7 weeks a year on their way to Hawaii, so we were very fortunate to have found them. As we approached we could see their huge tails slapping about in the water.

A tail span of 4 metres and a humpback can weigh up to 36 tonnes

There is something really special about seeing these guys in their natural environment. We have all seen whales at SeaWorld, and don’t get me wrong, it’s amazing what they have trained them to do, but to see them in the open ocean was quite something. One thing I didn’t appreciate was the foul stench of their breath when they surfaced and blew water our of their blow hole.

We stayed around here for about 30 mins with 5 or so other boats before we had to leave. Unfortunately there were no sightings of any Orcas in the area, so my SeaWorld memories will have to do.

Captain Geoff then dropped us all off in a pretty central location in Victoria where, after a quick bite to eat, we started to wander around to see what this place was like. It’s very British with a huge statue of Queen Victoria overlooking the harbour. We meandered through the town, popping into the local boutiques, sampling the freshly made fudge and visiting the Christmas Market. It’s a lovely city and it’s a very desirable (and expensive ) place to live.

The next day we were leaving the Island for Harrison Hot Springs, and decided to take to scenic route back to the ferry.

A view to die for!

This drive took about an hour and was amazing. This route was littered with stunning mansions all with beautiful view of the lake and mountains.

We arrived at the ferry terminal hoping to catch the 2pm ferry, only to be greeted with a massive queue and a ticket for the 5pm crossing. This meant we arrived at our next destination at about 9pm!

The RV park in Harrison Hot Springs was only about 2 kms from the town, so this was the first chance we had to get on our bikes. I was a bit worried that we might look a bit silly with our helmets etc, but I think we managed to pull it off quite well. It was a real laugh from start to finish as we hadn’t ridden bikes for ages and were pretty much all over the place and couldn’t stop giggling!

My favourite bit is the trousers tucked into the socks!

We cycled around for about 3 hours to see the place, but the source for the hot spring water was 2 hours drive up the mountains, so we were unable to see it, which was a shame. The water comes out of the spring at 65 degrees C and they have to cool it down before you can swim in it. We could have swam in the local pool that was fed from the springs, but it looked just like a normal swimming pool, so we knocked that idea on the head. I’m sure there will be plenty more opportunities to have a splash in an outdoor hot spring in the near future.

After another drive in the RV to take in more scenic views, we parked up back at the RV site, opened a bottle of wine (or 3), hopped onto the free wireless network and watched X-Factor!!

Harrison Hot Springs is beautiful, and I imagine a real hot spot in the summer.

All the photos from Vancouver Island and Harrison Hot Springs can be found here.

Vancouver Island - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=158526&id=502160409&l=01367625b1

Harrison - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=158569&id=502160409&l=28408410ee

Next stop – Kelowna for wine tasting!

Lots of love

Stuoobs

xxx

Our journey begins

I won’t bore you with with our plane ride to Vancouver only to mention that it was the smoothest flight I have even taken. 1 minute of turbulence in the entire 9 hours. Brilliant.

We arrived in Vancouver airport at 6.30 local time tired and a little hungover. The Gin fairy had been good to us on the flight. There wasn’t much we wanted to do on the first evening, so we checked into our hotel, showered, went to the bar for a drink and a late night snack before retiring to bed where I enjoyed half of “Secret Of My Success”.

The RV rental people picked us up the next day at 11.30 to take us to their rental depot. This was huge and had over 400 RV’s parked there, most of which looked massive. This was the part that we were both a tad worried about – the size of the vehicle we were going to be driving for the next 2 months. Upon arrival we were shown into reception where we we told that we had been upgraded to a better RV. Normally I love hearing the word upgrade but this time my only question was “is it going to be any bigger?”, to which we were told it was 4 foot longer, but with more stuff. Yes, that’s right, we were going to have to drive around in a 30 foot long, 12 foot high and 8.5 foot wide monster truck!

Anyway, once we had gotten over our fear of driving this thing, one of that chaps showed us how everything worked from turning the lounge lights on to emptying the toilet tank. All pretty straight forward stuff. After about an hour we were off on route to Whistler. We stopped on the way to collect 2 bikes and stock up on food at Wal-Mart (which by the way is surprisingly crap compared to Tesco).

The drive to Whistler took a couple of hours and we were getting very excited to spend the first ever night in our RV at our first ever RV park! After a night’s rest in a very comfy bed, we were up at about 6.30 (still jetlagged), and headed towards Whistler village for a wander. It was great to see it in summer time with stunning greenery and snowy topped mountains.

The main purpose of the visit here was to drop off our snowboards and luggage and get our discounted season passes. We will be back here in 2 months, and I will no doubt have a lot more to tell you!!

We left to head towards Vancouver Island and this is where I am writing this blog from now. I see this as the proper start to the trip as it’s all new and unplanned!

Stuoobs

xxx