Sketchy Park Up in BC CANADA | The END of our Rental RV Roadtrip

Five weeks ago we rented a motorhome from Fraser Way RV in Vancouver, Canada. We travelled into the states and discovered Idaho. It was a state we missed on our nine-month adventure back in 2023 before heading back into Canada to see the magnificent Canadian Rockies. So last week we left you at Canyon Hot Springs where we actually saw a bear in the camp, but in this final episode we show you the last few days before we get to Vancouver and we even stop at the Fantastic Hope, home of where they filmed Rambo. We're crossing the bridge at Revelstoke. Revelstoke's really interesting actually because it's got the meadows in the sky which is a fantastic motorcycle route. We're just going to stop. We're heading towards Kamloops and we're just going to stop at something I've seen online that I quite fancy seeing. Oh, just off the main highway you've got the Smoky Bear campground, but check out Mr Smoky Bear. He's enormous. Oh love that. It's pouring with rain now. Just past Revelstoke there is some construction going on. So from 7pm to 7am they close off this road and you have to turn around. We did notice that it looked like there was a road closure doesn't it heading to Kamloops, but now we figured out why. So just make sure that your timings are in the day. Beautiful lake on the way down. It looks like a looking glass doesn't it? Look how perfectly the image is reflected. So just heading towards Kamloops from Revelstoke. There's a place called Three Valley Gap and I think it's like a ghost town or something. It's set up like a ghost town perhaps. I'm not sure it's open. It certainly looks like a ghost town but I don't know if it's an attraction. I think it's an attraction that is set up like a ghost town. This is really interesting. Yeah it is. So there's quite a few attractions along the Trans-Canada Highway. Some of them are really brilliant. Now we're heading to Kamloops. Look at that. That looks very fun doesn't it? Three Valley Lake Chateau as well. So it looks like a hotel I think. I mean look at the stunning scenery as you're driving along as well. It's a great route this Trans-Canada Highway. So just off the main highway you've got the Enchanted Forest. It looks really cute for kids. A woodland wonderland for all. But you can spot it by the Enchanted Castle just there. You have to enter the other way. Look at it. It looks really cute. Now it's about, I think it was about $15 each to go in and you can go in with adults but we're going to give that a miss. Look at the rain and we're just heading down to Kamloops. There's little houseboats down on Mara Lake. We've been diverted off the one onto, is it the 97? The 97 yes. These are all for sale these little houseboats. Wow. So another reason why you should always have a little bit more mileage when you do a rental than you might need just in case you get a diversion like this. So the route one's been closed from 7 in the morning till 3 in the afternoon so obviously we're now at, well it's quarter to 11 here. It's absolutely pouring with rain so we're just making headway actually to make sure we try and get to Kamloops at the very least. Okay quick check-in. It's stopped raining which is great. We've had a right old long day of driving, over 300 kilometers today and we've gone past Kamloops now and we've just, we've seen on iOverlander there's one of those campgrounds where it's like an honesty thing. You pay $15 and it's basically, it's luck of the draw isn't it Gary? So we don't know if we're going to get in but we're giving it a chance and we're going down this road called Lac de Jeune Road. It's really quite pretty, we're quite enjoying it but if we can't get in here then we'll push on and see where else we can find. So this is the, oh somebody's parked up there Gary. Looks a bit boggy there I've got to be honest but this is the road, Lac de Jeune. It's really pretty down here and the highway, the main Trans-Canada Highway is literally just sort of to the right of me if you will. So we just have to take a side road now, there's a few cattle grids and it's oh proper bumpy. Oh it's a bit of a track isn't it and you've got to go three kilometers down here. I hope we can get in after all this. It's a little bit of a climb and it's bumpy as. Oh my goodness, I don't know where I've took us Gary. It might be, it might have a payoff mightn't it. Well it's all an adventure isn't it. Oh god it's an awful terrible road and it's really bumpy, loads of hills. So far I'm really starting to regret my little find on Ioverlander. If we get there and there's no spaces I'd be absolutely gutted. God somebody lives down here. Oh that'd be a nightmare commute wouldn't it. It looks like we're coming into it finally I'll tell you what. It's a right stressful drive. There's a lovely lake down here, this looks like it is it here. It says the Recreation Lake Boundary, here we go. Sites 1 to 15. Oh wow that's a great site though isn't it. He's right on the lake there, look at that. Oh gosh that is a good site that I bet he ain't moved on for weeks, I'm not sure I would. Okay there's the boat launch. Um site operator, I don't get this. Is this a pitch? Let's go in, see what it says. Oh do you just drive through? There's a there's a fire pit there, they can't be this big these pitches, they're huge aren't they. Is it that way or this way? Stop for information. Okay oh so we're, I mean they seem to be massive pitches don't they. So there was a trail here, Pete and Teresa. Proper stroker luck isn't it Gary. Fifteen dollars and uh you'll collect the money in a bit, it's nothing really, £7.50. Dry camping no problem but we've got a fire pit. I'll show you around in a sec. We're parked up here and there's another pitch just along here so if anyone else joins us then they're going to be opposite us and we'll share the fire pit as it were but stroker luck there was a bit of space and lovely lovely. I mean it was a bit of a trek to get here but there's a book swap so Gary's a bit chuffed, he's going to have a look at the book swap and there's a pit toilet and it's very clean. Really nice couple who run it as well. All right we're going to get that fire on, get some dinner on and everything aren't we and open a bottle of vino. Oh yeah. This is what it's all about camping in Canada isn't it. Got a fire going, got some wine going on. That's what it's all about all the time. And then the van. Right we're just heading off from the campsite now and this road on the Lac Lejeune it's called isn't it. It's absolutely stunning, there's lakes everywhere. We're heading down to Hope now where we'll stop for a bit of lunch before we find somewhere tonight to park up. Wow we're really coming down now aren't we Gary. Yeah we've got quite a steep hill, it's a six percent gradient for 18 kilometers. Wow. Basically means every 100 feet you go forward you drop six feet in height. Really gosh. It's a stunning view and such a pretty day as well like it's not too hot not too cold but I am being bitten by mosquitoes so Canada is really bad for mosquitoes. So we just filled up at Merritt because it's a lot cheaper than Hope and as we're heading into Vancouver it just gets dearer and dearer. 148 you said you paid a litre didn't you. 148.9 for that one yeah. That's not bad it goes up to 172 a litre, 1.72 a litre in Vancouver so yeah saved a few months there. So we just got into Hope, my gosh that's a right old truck down there wasn't it. That is a huge hill that's got to be 25 30 miles of a hill. It was pretty rough to be honest. We saw about four or five trucks broken down didn't we. Trying to go up so they've obviously overheated. Yeah poor sods. So anyway we've stopped in Hope we're going to get a bit of food we've just seen a little Korean restaurant we fancy something nice and spicy to eat and then we're going to show you something that we saw last time we come in Hope it's absolutely brilliant. Really nice little well-rated Korean restaurant and here's the menu it's not too badly priced. I think we're going to go for a joint starter these gyoza dumplings got four pieces for seven dollars and then a Korean rice bowl I think we're going to go for the beef one $19. A little miso bowl first and some little extras that you just pop I think you just pop in it that's what we're doing it tastes lovely. I don't think you're supposed to like tip them in here but anyway it does taste really good like that look at those. This is our main this is the rice dish oh yum. You'll be pleased to know we've met some celebrities and here's Rambo. Hey everyone. No that's Bloody Rocky. Because I should know more about it than you surely. So Hope is the place if you're a Rambo fan because Rambo First Blood had a lot of filming locations here and there's a map right outside of the visitors centre which is a porter cabin at the moment there's all the different locations that you can go and visit that that are part of the film. So Gary and I came to Hope before didn't we in our motorhome but we didn't we saw the the sort of amazing sculptures that they've got here but we didn't realise Rambo had been filmed here did we? Yeah the first one First Blood's been filmed all over Hope. So here it is this is Sylvester Stallone's carving and every year they have a carving competition don't they Gary? Literally loads of these carvings all the way around Hope and they're all different types of things you can see the bear in the background there. On the corner here you've got the sheriff who was Brian Denner here of course and by all accounts he was so popular in town very friendly. Here's a massive bear and also market going on here and this guy's got all these tools that you know he's turned into different sculptures. Isn't that a great idea? Great little gift shop so they've got one of these carvings I think that's quite good two thousand five hundred dollars that's about one thousand three hundred pound but I mean it's incredible. What have you got? Okay so don't get all geeky it's a stool sample. Oh god don't touch it what is it? I'm very funny. So that mountain there is Mount Hope. It's 1,836 metres high. Just realised that Mount Hope which is over there is lower than where we slept last night. We must have been so high up Gary. No wonder we were coming down so much. There's Mount Hope behind us there and then there's just a lovely little piece by the river as well. Morning so last night we stayed just outside of the museum. We didn't do any footage or anything there we were trying to be stealth and it was boiling hot but we do think somebody tried to siphon some fuel don't we love? Yeah because when we turned the engine on this morning big mission on big message come on the screen check your fuel filler cap and it was off. The fuel filler cap was off wasn't it? No you wouldn't have done that and we would have noticed it yesterday anyway because we drove quite a bit so somebody is obviously trying to siphon it off. I didn't feel massively comfortable there I'll be honest and now we know why. Well it's a massively rainy day today and we're heading to our final campground. We're going to stay here for two nights because we've got to clean the van pack everything up because on Monday we hand this baby back and we start heading back to the UK. Something seems to be happening as we get into Chilliwack. There's three police cars just past us right now. I hear more sirens we don't know what's going on down in the centre of Chilliwack. We just stopped because we want to pick up a few provisions before we get to the campsite. Gosh I hope everything's all right. You wouldn't normally get this many police cars responding would you? I thought so. So for our last two nights we're spending it in one campground to give us a good chance of getting ready. It's a bit near the main highway but here's Eagle Wind RV campground and this is just outside of Abbotsford. We've got about 60 kilometres to get to where we need to hand the RV back. This looks pretty nice but it's $140 for two nights. Crikey they're on top of each other Gary. Good grief. Well they're really on top of each other. I think that they say it's privacy because you've got those little hedges in between but they are really close to each other. So $136 was on the balance you already paid a little bit so it's cost about just about $75 a night this was which I think is quite expensive if I'm honest because although you've got hookup you've got to pay for the shower. So the shower they want you to pay a loonie which is a dollar might only be 50 pence or whatever it is 60p but I think if you're paying that kind of money you shouldn't have to. I don't like these sort of sites love. Christ we're right on top of each other aren't we? Yeah. All the big rigs are in here they they quite like obviously like to come in and and hook up. It's a 50 amp site but they have given us uh what do you call it an adapter haven't they to be able to use so that was really helpful but I'll be honest with you this is my absolute nightmare kind of site right on top of each other and there's nothing around here either there's no trails or nothing. So this is what the campsite feels like um for me it's all right but we're going to go out for a bit of a walk because we feel a bit cooped up in here. It's got a little swimming pool which is nice all pretty much packed up now ready to head off to the Fraser Way RV and hand her back. So we're just leaving the campsite and uh just to my right hand side is the little swimming pool it was nice actually we had a little dip yesterday it's got a little jacuzzi next to it we'll just maybe just capture that. Gary's just going to hand in the adapter they lent you one didn't they? We only had a 30 amp adapter from the RV hire company and these guys obviously know. There it is just over there just set the lights ready to turn to make sure your van's full and we filled it up haven't we it's difficult to guess it right though isn't it because you've got to put the fuel in and hope it does it so we had to do a couple of top ups really to get it in there but yep that's it for us and this van so it's all goes you're handing it back there's loads of vans here obviously picking up dropping off we had some stuff that we'd bought like um like a cushion and plastic containers to slot things in so we've just given them away haven't you did you just put them away hopefully someone else will get some use out of them um but i can smell cakes or something can you it smells really nice here anyway they're getting us the shuttle sorted and that'll take us to the hotel and then that'll be us so no problems there van's gone back all right great experience and they've even given out free hot dogs here today i think gary's gary's kind of thinking about it aren't you my stomach's definitely thinking about that my mouth's already salivated and they give you a transport then back to your hotel or back to the airport whatever you're doing right that's it we're in the river rock hotel in vancouver aren't we oh it's been beautiful we had a lovely sunset last night i'll show you that i'll quickly show you our gorgeous room because it was really nice so we got one of these lovely suite rooms didn't we gary we really like these and we got all our suitcases got four suitcases in the end but had a lovely bedroom last night really nice bathroom and we were really fortunate to have a window view of the river and every every sort of maybe half an hour hour gary a plane will fly over five minutes yeah it's gorgeous that's it we fly in a couple of hours don't we yeah back to the uk and then back to spain um i hope you've enjoyed this road trip it's been brilliant hasn't it what a lot of fun we've had um we'll do a we'll do a wrap-up video once we're back in spain and settled and everything and share with you our favorite places our top tips all of that when you're renting an rv if you're coming over stateside so thanks for joining us everyone we love you loads um we'll leave you with a couple of pictures from our fabulous trip thanks for watching everyone take care bye you