Camping at Swiwis & Fintry Parks in the Okanagan!

Hey everyone! So we are heading out of town, as you can tell, and we are actually heading over to the Okanagan. It's mid-September. The temperatures are much cooler now, which is good. It's a good time to go to the Okanagan. And we might try to go to a couple of campgrounds that we've never been to before. So we hope you enjoy this video. We didn't have any reservations for the first night. We weren't sure where we were going to stay. But we decided to come out here to Osoyu's, to the Suiwis, also known as Haines Point Provincial Park. And we are in the overflow area. And for those who have seen our videos before, we have stayed here a few times. And this is gorgeous. Nice, refreshing Mexican beer. To the long drive, but beautiful views. Yeah, that was a long drive for you. Good, that's the only amount I want to drink now. It's good. It's the first sip, maybe the second. And look at our view. Not too shabby. And Finch is tired and fast asleep. Okay, this is our morning view. The sun's been up for about an hour. Good morning, everyone. I'm just out for a little walk here at Haines Point on the interpretive trail network they have. Actually up in the viewing platform, which you can also use to do some chin-ups and some stretches on. But worked out for a nice start to my morning. Lake's just on the other side. A little to the south. U.S. border's just over there a little ways. Off to the west. A little bit of cloud. And then farther up the Okanogan Valley. The weather this week is spectacular. Sort of low 20s. Mostly sunny. Just great. Perfect time of the year to be here. And you can see our van just right in the middle of the overflow area. So the interesting thing about camping here for us, we actually prefer staying in the overflow. Well, if we're just here for one night. I think that's the limit. We really quite like it. Just because we're right beside the water. Plus staying in the overflow gives you a view like this in the morning. Our view, Finch. So today we're going to head over to Fentry Provincial Park, which is... First time we've been there actually. You pass West Kelowna and keep driving north towards Vernon. And should be there. Not too far from Bear Creek Provincial Park. We were there before. And then we ended up also booking a couple nights at a provincial park called Ellison. Which is on the other side of Okanogan Lake. We're looking forward to it. We haven't been to those two campgrounds before. And before we head over to Fentry today, I'm hoping to hit a couple of wineries. Maybe do some tasting. Buy some wine. Because we're in the Okanogan and I can't miss the opportunity. Fall in the Okanogan to me is the best time of year to be here. The temperature during the day is in the low 20s. Not that cold at night. And it's not that busy. So it's a great way to support some of the local economy here. When there's not a lot of other folks here. Other than I guess a bit of the grey wave. I just want to do a shout out to our friends Alex and Pete. Who today are actually just leaving Whitehorse. They've been up in Northern BC and then up in the Yukon. On our community post section of our YouTube channel. I noted I sent a couple pictures yesterday saying guess where we are. And Pete responded in like 10 seconds getting the right answer. So we just wanted to say hi and wish them safe travels. And we're kind of envious because it looks really nice where they're at right now too. I know, we're jealous. Yeah, we have to get up there one day. One nice thing about a ProMaster van. It has a very good turning radius. I bet our driver could have done it in one. Probably Mickey. Got a few bottles of wine. Little souvenirs. Oil and vinegar. And some little postcards and prints. And I'm a happy camper. Love the Okanagan. That's the restaurant there. Looks nice. I'm just out for a walk. I was tired after the drive from the south Okanagan. It's a lot farther than I expected actually. I guess we've never driven from a Soyuz to almost Vernon before. Just looked at the historic barns there. And this I believe is the way up to the waterfall. Because I can hear a creek in the background a little bit. Water power, the secret of Finchery's success. Yeah, this looks interesting. James Cameron Dunn Waters. Laird of Finchery. I had already made it work. I guess people doubted him. Basically, he created a bit of a dam in the gorge near the bottom. And channeled some water into a reservoir on the ledge up higher on the cliff. And then had a wood stave wire wrapped pipe. It carried water down across the gorge until it was level with the north hill. Simply put, without going through some of the engineering achievements, he was able to generate power which when the water reached the powerhouse just west of the barns, it was channeled into several smaller pipes that could be opened as needed. They led to the granary providing power to grind grain. And to the pelton wheel that created electricity for the estate. And to the sawmill. Impressive. I forget there's a bunch of steps here. Mickey told me how many. Not a lot of water, but what would you expect by mid-September? Now we've got to go up there. More stairs. View from the top of the stairs. And... all the way back. I quite enjoyed that short little hike. I would have loved to see when everything was operational. Anyway, very impressive. All these sites out here are powered. Largely because it's a big open field. And they're not all open yet. The person at the gatehouse said they should be all online next year, so they're all new. But you'd be out in an open field, but you get an amazing view from here. And I would guess the ones that are over there now are probably already open, where you see the trailers. Oh, a roly-poly. Oh, watch it, that's me. That's me. Is he biting you? No, he's just licking my wrist right now. Oh, a little bit of a bite, because I'm not paying attention. Hello, hello, hello. You're in trouble now. Hello. Yeah, there's a good sense of all the campsites here in the loops. All out in the field. So we're trying this trail, just off the middle. Off the beaten path, so to speak. But there is a park map that shows a loop trail. And just before we came up on the waterfall trail, we saw something coming up this way. So maybe this will loop onto it. Who knows? That would be nice. It's easier than taking the stairs, probably. A lot of steps. 400 steps. The road we were on is actually on the Gaia map. It ultimately leads to the highway up here. But this little hike ventures off above the canyon. And we just got to look at some of the infrastructure. We're just below the road, probably a couple hundred feet. Gordon just loves his exploring. Okay, so this road took us to the paved road. Unauthorized motor vehicles, no parking in front of gates, and closed. And it does say BC Parks, so I think you're right. It is part of BC Parks. Yeah, so we just simply followed the trail, the road, got some beautiful views of the canyon, and now you're up by the highway. Decent little workout, though. I'm going to see if we can take the road all the way down to the campground. So we took the trail from the waterfall along the steps, and then just below the top of the waterfall stairs you can cut across to the right. So we went up to the waterfalls, looked from the viewpoint, came down a little bit, and then cut across onto the trail that goes onto this road that comes out here. It's probably about 150 meters in elevation gain. Nice little workout. That's an interesting pose. You're a funny boy. Ow! Ow! Just preparing a quick one pot pasta meal in the van. Very rarely cook in the van because we don't really like the food smells, but we really don't have a choice because it's stormy out there. You can hear thunder. So just throwing together some basil in with the pasta that's just cooking right now. And then I'm just going to add vegetables and then I'm going to add this Nino Vegan rich, creamy sauce. It's plant-based, obviously. And then I'll just throw some spinach in at the very end. So we'll see how it turns out. Finch and Gordon are just chilling out in the van. I'm not sure if Finch is sleeping or not. He's pretending to sleep. Okay. I actually added too much water so I had to strain most of the pasta water out. But I'm heating up the sauce now with the pasta. I've got cooked chicken strips for Gordon. I'm just going to put it at the bottom of the bowl. I've got some smoked tofu for myself. And I'll just serve the spaghetti on top. Add some vegan parmesan and some spinach and we're ready to go. Dinner is served. Bon appétit. Good morning, everyone. So we just left our site at Fintree Provincial Park. Our campsite. And we are heading out to Ellison Park. Nice campsites. Ours was kind of backwards. They had the picnic table on the wrong side and the fire pit. So it made it a little awkward. But we can't complain. We were on the water. Nice views. Yeah, it was gorgeous. And the campground, very busy. And I guess for the most part the privacy is probably not the best here. But there's some sites along the lake that are just absolutely gorgeous. And we were lucky to get one just steps away from the beach. So just spectacular. Good facilities. They have washroom buildings with showers. Although the one near us only had one toilet and two showers. So it got pretty busy. There are flush toilet outhouses that are sort of spread around the park. And we were I guess in the oldest section. The first loop. And some of the other ones are a little bit newer. Most of the sites are really actually in the open, in the grassy fields. What I liked about this park obviously you've got water access. Unfortunately, I can't do any paddling because my shoulder is still acting up. But there's lots of area to walk around. You can go up the hillside like we did to the waterfall. And then up and over along the ridge. I went up there this morning for a workout. It was just great. And we enjoyed the tour of Laird Fentry's old manor house. That was pretty amazing. Gordon had to cut his visit short because I left a window open and it started to pour rain. So I had to run back and I didn't want to go back. And it's by donation. The Fentry I think it's called the Historical Society. I think I'm wrong but I'll put the name down below. They actually do this all by donation. BC Parks I guess doesn't really support it. But they're happy to have them here. And so it would be nice if you do go visit to give them a donation because that really helps. Keep that. And there's just some beautiful in the house there's a lot of beautiful antiques and paintings. And there's one big surprise at the end of the tour. So you're going to have to join the tour. I believe it's only on the weekends between 1 and 3. And I think they do like a couple of tours. Maybe in the main part of summer they may do others we don't know. I think the tour, one tour lasts about an hour I think. And yeah a big surprise at the end. So if you get a chance definitely join that tour. It's pretty amazing. Yeah I mean in summary I was really impressed with this park. It's beautiful. The area where some of the open fields and camping is is beautiful. The hillside is beautiful. You walk up to the waterfall and do some of the it's a light hike. You get some amazing views. Water access. The park's people do an amazing job in terms of keeping everything really clean as Mickey was saying. The shower area where we were at was the older one so it's getting a little older. But it's immaculate. The new one is very nice. It's just a nice place. I really enjoyed it. Yeah we really did. And so I think this is it for our video. We hope you enjoyed our visit back to Haines Point Provincial Park in Osoyoos. And checking out the wineries. And over here in Finchery. And if you enjoyed this video please be sure to give us a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel if you haven't done so already. And we'll see you next time. We'll see you next time. And Finch says see you next time as well.