Kelowna Parks Challenge – Trip #23
This week I travelled to the rural community of East Kelowna for the Kelowna Parks Challenge. Together with my wife, Jen, we explored the town centre and the main community park there. Unfortunately, due to a series of setbacks involving weather, health, and car trouble, we had to cut our trip short. We didn’t make it to the parks in the adjacent Hall Road neighbourhood, but that just gives us something to still look forward to.
Read on for my impressions and reflections!
The Trip
East Kelowna is a primarily agricultural region. It sits on top of the Benches, a series of elevated terraces south of Mission Creek. In the first couple decades of the twentieth century, the land, which had been used for ranching up to that point, was developed by the Kelowna, Land & Orchard Company (KLO) as a place for settler families to start orchards, which seemed to offer an attractive and leisurely lifestyle.
To this day, orchards are the chief use of East Kelowna land, though vineyards are more and more common. Because agricultural land is so precious in mostly mountainous British Columbia, there is little chance any of it will be subdivided for residential purposes any time soon. Nevertheless, small pockets of residential zoning do dot the landscape, and there is one significant commercial zone at the intersection of KLO Road, McCulloch Road and East Kelowna Road. This is the East Kelowna town centre, where you can find St. Mary’s Anglican Church (1938), the East Kelowna Community Hall (1940), the local corner store, the pub, and a garage. This is also where you will find East Kelowna Park, the only park we saw this week.
East Kelowna Park
This is a fairly large and functional neighbourhood park. Despite its size, it is dominated by one feature: its two baseball diamonds. It doesn’t have a children’s playground or any trails, but having driven past it in the summer, I can say that it is a well-used destination park for locals who want to play ball.
The other great feature of this park is its washroom building. Of course, the washrooms are closed from October to April, but they appear to be the only public washrooms between Mission Creek Regional Park and South Kelowna Centennial Park. This is always good to know for those out for a walk.
Washrooms and Drinking Fountains: There is no drinking fountain in this park. There is a washroom building on the north side of this park. The washrooms are closed between October and April.
Dog Rules: Because it is taken up by playing fields, dogs are not allowed in this park.
Reflections
Setbacks
Setbacks are inevitable, but I am still grateful for the walk I was able to have this week. Even a truncated walk is better than no walk. Challenges can be frustrating when they limit what I was planning to do, but they also are part of what makes it an adventure. Also, they can provide rewarding problem-solving opportunities, such as when Jen and I had to figure out how to get our vehicle out of the deep snow in the East Kelowna Park parking lot.
Short Familiar Walks
Even if circumstances conspire to prevent you from going on the wonderful walk you planned, there is always something to be gained from the smallest, most familiar walk. It might be as small as the thrill of taking a chance that something different could happen, but usually it’s more. Whether it’s the chance to observe the changing of the seasons, or the chance to meet a neighbourhood pet, it can be surprising what variety can be found in familiar locations.
The danger, of course, is that you’ll assume the route is so familiar that it will have nothing new to offer. Then you’ll choose to stay in rather than go out. My advice is not to debate it with yourself but to just go. Once you’re out and walking, you’ll know it was the right choice.
Conclusions
Once again I had a winter week with a small number of walks. I don’t really mind since it just means I’m setting myself up for great spring adventures. Nevertheless, I’m keeping track of the numbers closely.
With the addition of this week’s park, I have now seen ninety-nine of the two hundred and three parks on the Official List in one hundred eighty-four days, or 49% of the parks in 50% of the days. This is the first time I have been behind the pace in my challenge, but I am not worried. I assumed this would happen in the winter. Nevertheless, I will have to try to see more than one park next week.
