As usual, there was a bit of a wait to pick up the car, but not too bad, really. The car itself was a Fiat 500, though luckily somewhat larger than a UK Fiat 500 … it really wasn’t too bad leaving Vancouver, the roads are fairly empty, and then headed up the Trans Canada to Hope. It was only the first day of driving, but we discovered that it’s not easy to get lunch enroute … ended up with a rather dodgy pasta salad. However, the views made up for it! There were two options from Hope, one was the Crowsnest highway – a scenic route, the other a multilane highway. No prizes for guessing which we picked. Just before Penticton, our destination, we’d decided to detour to Okanagan Falls. Shame that the falls were all of 3” high …

There were multitudinous fruit stalls by the roadside, as well as wineries, but time and weather confined us to the inside of the car. Penticton itself was partially closed, due to an Iron Man (and woman) contest, which was headquartered in our hotel. There was a great view of the lake from the room.

After an evening pottering round town, finding somewhere to eat, seeing a little of the band playing in the central park, (perhaps the rather small crowds were indicative of the fact that that your average Ironman athlete would actually want to party all night before the event), we returned to the hotel … and discovered someone had damaged the front of the car. Whoops. Luckily, the guy who’d done it admitted responsibility – turned out to be a very nice guy (albeit one with a temperamental boat trailer)