A Week in Kelowna: Rainy Trails and Kangaroos

What started as a quasi-necessity (to travel to Kelowna, BC) quickly became a highlight of our summer, and we still have a whole summer of fun planned! Kelowna was absolutely perfect, and I would highly recommend anyone visit if you get the chance.

~Use arrows on the left and right to navigate the album, or open in Google Photos to view~

Table of Contents

• General
• Kangaroo Creek Farm
• Hiking and Biking

General

We have known for a while now that we would be travelling to Kelowna to visit my tattoo artist and continue my sleeve cover-up. It worked out perfectly to start our summer trip there and make it a destination of its own.

As you may have seen in our Summer Escape 2025 post, we drove the 1,500 miles to Canada, including a border crossing and lots of rain!

Our plan was to be tourists on Saturday and Sunday, then Nathan was working the whole week, and I would get my tattoo and then recover for the rest of the week. This worked out pretty well except for the surprise rain!

We learned later in the week that the overcast and rainy weather that we have come to expect in Canada was not normal for Kelowna, which is considered more of a desert. Nathan was extremely happy with this weather, but it did make planning a little more challenging, as I had found a lot of outdoor activities to keep us busy.

Saturday, we started at Kangaroo Creek Farm, which I will dedicate a whole section to because it was AMAZING. Then we took a drive up north to see Planet Bee Meadery (website here).

They had some delicious tastings of mead and honey, so naturally we picked up a few bottles to bring home with us including Ode to Odin (which tasted like a light Whiskey, not quite Honey Whisky but not straight either), Winter Spice (for a mulled wine vibe) and others that I have forgotten at the moment 😆.

Next, we stopped by Pretty Not Bad (website here) for some lunch, and Nathan had some amazing tater tot poutine and mac and cheese.

The restaurant was pretty close to downtown, and the rain had let up, so we made our way down to the boardwalk and got to see Okanagan Lake up close.

There is some serious money in Kelowna with the dozen highrises and townhouses with a personal boat dock and storage right outside your front door!

We were also impressed with an actual beach, which on a nicer, warmer day has to be packed!

The boardwalk was pretty short, but we continued on our way towards downtown and saw where their winter ice rink was, stopped by a Canadian Rocky Mountain Chocolate (which is not the same as the one in the US), and walked through a park.

As we wandered through the park, we noticed some tents, so of course we had to check out what was going on. Apparently, it was the Canadian National Indigenous Day, so they had a celebration set up in the park, as well as a few streets downtown shut down for another group. It was pretty cool to see!

One of the other things we learned is that Kelowna is a huge agricultural area, and they have farm stands everywhere selling tons of cherries and other fruits and goods. Nathan got to enjoy a whole bag, and we later learned that cherries are grown on a tree rather than a bush.

After all our fun on Saturday, we spent Sunday outside doing all the hiking and biking we could fit! It was a slightly nicer day, but we also planned to be rained on the whole day, but it was going to be worth it to be outside. Those stories and pictures deserve their own section as well!

Kangaroo Creek Farm

I won’t lie, I almost bailed on the idea of going to the Kangaroo Farm. I was worried it would be lame, cheesy, or just so overrun by kids that we would be miserable. I am SO very happy that we decided to just go with it and worst case leave, but we were in no hurry to do that!

Turns out it is a full-on petting and feeding zoo for not only Kangaroos but tons of other animals you wouldn’t normally see, even at a zoo!

The farm was really clean, nicely maintained, and the staff were super friendly and helpful with all of the animals.

We started in the Kangaroo area, where they gave you some leaves to feed them as well as some quick instructions on how to pet them appropriately (only their back with a flat hand going down).

Nathan is petting Zeus, which became my favorite because he was the only one that seemed excited about treats. A few wouldn’t even take the leaves from us.

These Kanagroos were fully grown, so much smaller than the traditional ones in AU. We did get to see a 10 week old baby, and this was their first day out of the protected area and in the public. No surprise, they didn’t want anything to do with us yet lol.

The staff had warned us that the Kanagroos were very lazy and you had to bring the treat all the way to their mouth before they would take it. I can confirm that they truly did just lay there the entire time, unless they weren’t interested in your attention and then they got up and left, which was rather abrupt and amusing.

In the same area they had Patagonian maras and Capybaras. Both of which were fascinating! The Patagonian maras looked like bunnies but when they stood, their legs reminded me of deer. Nathan was impressed with the Capybara, which was named Hashbrown.

They had a separate area with more Capybara’s where we felt little more comfortable petting them (Hashrown didn’t really seem interested in that). They had a very wiry fur and would make a noise that sounded like a woodpecker! One of them seemed extra cuddly with me.

Then we got to see sugar gliders! Nathan was really excited about these cute little guys. We learned that they are not good pets, but because they are cute and little people will get them and then quickly give them up because they are loud and smell terrible. They were also quite the climbers! Running all around me, not so much Nathan though.

Throughout the area we saw emu (which are ugly scary looking mofos), bunnies, pigs, and Nathan even got to hold a snake!

Our last stop was Priscilla the porcupine! We thought for sure it would only be a look area, but we actually got to feed and pet her too. Apparenty, it is a myth that they shoot their quills 🤷‍♀️. It felt about like you would expect, wiry with hard quills… not very petting friendly to be honest, but still cool!

Also, the entire time we were their and said porcupine, we could not stop remembering and laughing about the Family Fued clip… if you haven’t seen it you should definitely watch it for a good laugh!

Sadly, that was the end of our farm adventure. We will happily go back if anyone wants to join us!!

Hiking and Biking

Kelowna and the surrounding area was absolutely gorgeous! The trees, mountains, and while not usual the overcast and rain just made it perfect.

We spent Sunday outdoors doing two hikes and one bike ride.

Our morning started with a 1.5 mile hike through Mill Creek Park (All Trails Link). It was really close to the city and our hotel, but almost immediately you were immersed in the trees and it was like the world faded away.

Next we drove over to West Kelowna and started the Glen Canyon Greenway trail (All Trails Link). That was a good hike as well, but not as great as Mill Creek. Though we did see lots of insects on this one and it is a little sad over how excited we were to see snails and butterflies.

We cut Glen Canyon short though because we were trying to time our next destination appropriately, and it turned out perfect!

Originally, we had planned to bring our bikes with us to Canada, but once we saw the forecast was rain we left our bikes at my parents. However, one of the activities I wanted to do was go to Myra Canyon (All Trails Link), which All Trails had as a 15 mile hike/bike. I figured worst case we would hike as far as we could and then turn back.

Well it turned out even better!

There was a company setup to rent bikes, right at the entrance to the hike. Since we didn’t know this we took the risk that they would have availability for us last minute and our luck held out better than expected. They ended up having two eBikes available for us to take for the afternoon for a shocking good deal (in our opinion at least).

Now, Nathan has been wanting an eBike for a long time. We did a miny test ride with a fully electric bike that you didn’t have to peddal with, but didn’t love it – especially for the price. So this was the perfect opportunity to do a longer test as well as a peddal assist version that isn’t as invasive to a standard bike experience.

I will just tell you now… it was PERFECT and it only took a week after this trip before Nathan had found and purchased the exact same bikes for us to use going forward. 🤣 Thank you Dave’s Bike Shop in Idaho Falls!

Back to Myra Canyon though, because it was also incredible! It is actually an old railroad path that once the train was decommissioned they converted to a park. We were seriously impressed at how well the trail is maintained for locals to use, and they use it! There were so many people, but it never felt crowded or a problem since we were spread out over 7 miles (one way).

There are 18 bridges and 2 tunnels that you get to see and go through on this trail. They even had information plaques throughout, explaining the different things along with trail.

Now, depending on who you are you might say our luck run out at this point. All day we had prepared for things to be a muddy mess but it wasn’t bad at all and it didn’t rain on us during our hikes. About 3/4 of the way through one way of the ride… the rain started.

It wasn’t terrible, but it did get a little chilly since we were biking and going faster than normal with the peddal assist. Thankfully it didn’t last the entire way back but we got pretty wet regardless.

Even with the rain, I would do this trail again in a heartbeat, so if you want to visit Kelowna just say the word and we will go with you!!

Whenver we come back to Kelonwa again, we want to try and schedule it around their bike rave! Apparently they have an event twice a year where everyone decks out in rave gear for themselves and their bikes and they ride park to park with different DJs setup.

Kelowna has easily become one of our top places to visit. We would highly recommend it to anyone, especially if you enjoy the outdoors because we just scratched the surface of what is available.

Until next time!