July 11th - 2016 - Kimberley Mine Tour and Cominco Gardens

July 11th - Kimberley

Saturday and Sunday we spent at camp to let Ray use his pontoon boat. It is working superbly for him. He sits back just like he was sitting in his lounger and is finding it very comfortable. Unfortunately the fishing isn't  great. I don't think he has the right leech. The one guy that is catching fish sits in the same spot for hours and may get one fish. Not our way of fishing. I'll be looking at other possible places for Ray to fish on the next leg of our travels.

Monday we woke to cloudy skies so a perfect day to go into Kimberley for the mine tour. We'll need to leave Freya in the car so we were waiting for cool weather. With the generator hours we waited until 9 am to charge the batteries from overnight for an hour first and were on our way at 10 am. As the train tour isn't until 1 pm (we missed the 11 am tour by 15 minutes) we decided to go see Cominco Gardens first, then ate lunch before our 1 pm tour.

The gardens are quite small, but very pretty and maintained by volunteers.

We ate lunch at BJ's Creekside Restaurant and Pub, unfortunately the pub side isn't open for lunch, so no craft beer. Ray ordered the fish and chips and I, their burger with onion rings. Very reasonably priced and very good.

Back to the mine museum and train station. While sitting on the train ready to go I mentioned to one of the volunteers we left Freya in the car with the windows wide open and sun screen in the windshield with water so don't let anyone think she is in trouble. The lady replied Freya's allowed on the train so go get her. Freya did not really enjoy the two hour tour but she hung in there. Some of the loud noises in the mine were a bit much. A baby came on the tour, and when the baby would cry, Freya would whine too. Oh well, the more we challenge her the better she gets with noises. The tour is very interesting but way too much standing for Ray, so when we got back home it's into the pain medication and laying in bed for a few hours.

This guy volunteers to entertain the guests every day. 

Freya on the train.

They spent an extra $20,000 on the track upgrade making it bump along to show us how bumpy it used to be for the miners. Freya's not too excited about that though.

Mark Creek, feeds the Marysville Falls further downstream.

The guy demonstrating the mine equipment worked for this mine for 35 plus years. 25 years underground and 12 years above ground. He said he preferred the underground years instead of doing paperwork! Very knowledgeable. Both his father and uncle worked this mine as well.

This is the "Safe Room" where they would lock themselves in if there was a fire or problem in the mine until they could be rescued.

Entrance to the Sullivan Mine

Next stop is the Powerhouse which produced power to make compressed air to run all of the drills and mine equipment.

Old punch clocks

Hemp rope

Next it's back to the town station. Ray took some pictures of the other buildings while waiting for us to begin the trip.

Another great day. We could see huge black thunderclouds developing and before we drove out of town the skies opened up. I think the next tour is going to get wet as there is some walking outside! The rain stopped by the time we hit the junction to turn towards Invermere.

When we got back home, about an hour later, it started to rain at the lake as well for the rest of the evening. Ray's in no shape to go fishing anyways.