I love long distance bus journeys. Back in India I used to do quite a lot. Apart from my regular overnight bus rides from Nellore to Hyderabad and back on the weekends, I used to take buses on many of my short weekend trips. A visit to a remote forest rest house in Andhra Pradesh and to an off beat hill station in Tamil Nadu comes to mind. Ever since moving to Canada I have been looking to go on some bus journeys. Unfortunately, just around my time of moving to Canada, the Greyhound bus service in Canada closed down. And then Covid19 happened shutting down all travel plans. In 2021, I moved to Kelowna and I got an opportunity for a bus journey when I was scheduled to do some site inspections in Nelson, a city almost 350km away. Due to reasons which are too long and private to describe here I decided to take a bus instead of going by car which is more popular in this country.
On the scheduled day, I reached the starting point of bus which is at the Orchard Park Mall in Kelowna 30 mins before the scheduled departure time. I was alone when I reached but slowly a few more people joined in. The bus arrived 5 mins early and the driver, a friendly lady checked our IDs and went off for a quick refreshment break. The bus was a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter Crew Van 2500. It had a seating capacity of 12 people. Soon the driver was back, she loaded our bags in the luggage compartment at the back and off we went on our 6 hour journey. Apart from me, there was two ladies travelling together and a guy who worked in the Canadian National Railways and was reporting back to work after taking a break in the weekend.
The bus journey itself was comfortable. I settled down in the last row of the bus near the window. The views throughout the journey were beautiful. As it was winter, most of the surroundings were covered with snow. It was just white everywhere with some green trees jutting out of the white sheet here and there. Our first stop for a break was in Rock Creek, where we stopped near a gas station. The store nearby had, to my absolute surprise, hot samosas. I got 2 for myself and got some hot chocolate. The samosas were delicious. Reminded me of the dhaba stops in India. The next stop was in Grand Forks, a beautiful city near the US border. I had passed through these cities and towns 3 times before during my previous trips to the Kootenays. I visited Nelson, Castlegar and Trail in previous trips. That was with a colleague in a car. The bus journey had a different feel to it.
We reached Nelson around 4 30pm. I bid good bye to the driver and walked to my hotel. The overall journey was smooth, relaxed and fun. Though it was shorter than what I would have liked it was a good bus journey. My quest for a bus journey in Canada which is longer both in terms of time and distance, remains ongoing.
