Our first stop in our Canadian Rockies escapade is the city of Kamloops. The word Kamloops is the English translation of the Shuswap word which means where the rivers meet, and almost 80,000 people live at the junction of the North and South Thompson rivers. The trip from Vancouver was about 4 hours mainly on Highway 1 which was great for us as driving on a different side of the road can be (and is) extremely stressful.

We have a zippy little Golf to cruise around in which we are loving.

The folk of Kamloops are absolutely thrilled that in the last 24 hours they have received 1/3 of their September rainfall. Yikes – we are only here for one full day and were a little concerned about seeing as much as we could with the weather the way it is.

We started our day with a visit to the Kamloops Wildlife Centre where they rescue and rehabilitate animals. Many of the animals have been orphaned as babies and brought in for care. In the case of Clover (a beautiful bear) he was released back into the wild for a short period of time however he was picked up again and it became clear that his chance of survival was low and so he now resides here at the Wildlife Centre. His story here is not unusual there are a number of orphaned animals who didn’t learn the skills they needed from their mums and so would find it very difficult out to survive.

My photo doesn’t do this building justice. It’s got a great look to it and is incredibly green using recycled and innovative materials such as wood chips in the building itself and uses natural light and renewable energy for heating and cooling. Sorry no photos of the animals….

From here we decided to walk the Rivers Trail alongside the Thompson and North Thompson rivers. The sections we were on were all paved and some of the trail went through the suburb of Tranquile unfortunately the weather was not on our side and so while we had great plans to get more of the trail completed today wasn’t a great day for it….but I did get some photos.😀

We finished our day with probably my personal Kamloops favourite our self directed alley art mural tour – wowsers! There are 30 murals in total and I have included a selection. I’m a huge fan of these and love seeing them in unexpected places.

These murals are huge and so amazing. As I wandered through the back alleys of Kamloops I kept thinking how unbelievable these would look on a sunny day.

One of the things that struck me most is that Kamloops is as described by the tourist bureau “ boldly unscripted”. There are signs everywhere that the city is in a period of renewal and I must say I’m a fan. We had a great time in this surprising place that is not at all what you expect.