She’s beautiful so why does nobody talk about her? Well, except maybe the grey-haired RV crowd who cruise up and down her all summer long.

Most travellers in Beautiful British Columbia – at least according to the licence plate – are well aware of the Trans-Canada Highway, the Coquihalla, the Cariboo Highway and the South Provincial.

But Highway 5 doesn’t get the same publicitys.

We’re not, of course, talking about the famous Coquihalla 5. No, no, no. Those who want a more leisurely pace packed with picturesque scenery as they head north from the Lower Mainland can peel off at Merritt and take Highway 5A. It was the right choice for me to go that way, with Brody following, even though it was 12 kilometres longer than The Coq to get to Kamloops. It wound around Nicola Lake like your favourite comfy socks making you feel good, so good. There are all sorts of RV parks, boats and golf courses all set to enjoy the coming summer.

For me, in early May, traffic was limited, and the hills pretty well non-existent. Not like The Coq’s massive escalating tributes to transportation politicians, make that engineering, and the BC Liberals eschewing safety by kowtowing to its favoured constituency with 120 km speed limits.

North of Kamloops, however, Hwy 5 comes into its own.

The road offers outstanding views as it follows the North Thompson River which cuts a path between the Cariboo Mountains to the west and the Columbia range to the east. There’s lots of foliage, although around Barriere you can see where fire and pine beetles did their devastating thing a few years back.

After Clive and I connected at Little Fort on Wednesday we decided to spend the night in Clearwater. On our way, I was humming along when all of a sudden a deer bounded up on to the shoulder startling me for a sec. It started prancing up the road ahead of me before cutting over to the other side and disappearing just as quickly as it appeared.

(Just as an aside, it actually isn’t the biggest encounter with wildlife on a bicycle I’ve had recently. I’ve seen a bear three times in the last year. In Burnaby! The most recent coming just two weeks before our departure and it was the most jarring. I was in the Burnaby Mountain area going down a hill when a bear jumped out on the road from some bushes next to the Kinder Morgan operation. He looked at me bearing down (pun intended, of course) on him and with a surprised look on his face he turned and sprinted across the road heading into a residential area to no doubt surprise some others. A couple of seconds difference and I might have been road kill! I also encountered two huge moose last April while riding on the highway near Cousin Marg’s place just outside of Riding Mountain Park in Manitoba. Deer sightings around her place are so ubiquitous they’re not even a passing thought in her neck of the woods. But two Moose, who loped across the road after staring at me while I stopped too frozen to take a picture, now that even surprised Marg and hubby Bob. That same trip I also came across a spooked dear who had just crossed a busy street in Medicine Hat and then looked at me riding along a frontage road and sprinted away.)

Since Highway 5 is in a river valley it’s not too hilly for cyclists. Not that there aren’t some challenging inclines but nothing like the Rogers Pass or the Coquihalla Summit.

Sometimes the highway is right next to the river. There was one spectacular spot in Thursday’s ride between Clearwater and Blue River where the river is a raging fury. It’s no wonder. At that juncture one of its tributaries, the Mad River (honest, that’s what the sign said) joins the North Thompson.

There’s also a regional park called Little Hell’s Gate. We didn’t visit, but apparently it’s a reasonable facsimile to the touristy one in the Fraser River Canyon.

We stopped for lunch at a wonderful rest spot about halfway through our journey. It was nice to eat as the river flowed by. There were plenty of travellers who had the same idea. The scenic serenity was suddenly broken when a bus pulled into the parking lot. Out jumped a tour manager and he headed straight toward the river. He was soon followed by a bunch of hustling seniors, some almost running – or at least I think they were running because it was almost slow motion. It was a little perplexing at first, but then all of a sudden they were waving at a train flying by on the other side of the river. Turns out it was the Rocky Mountaineer – which knows scenery when it sees it – and a bunch of their fellow travellers were on it.

Snow-capped mountains loom large over Blue River. Heli-skiing is big here with Mike Wiegele’s well-known outfit based in the town.

Our campground is right next to a lake. While another camper had jumped in Thursday afternoon and swore the water wasn’t colds, Clive and I weren’t quite prepared to do try. Besides, our legs had the strength the baked lasagna Clive had for dinner after 112 kilometres of pedalling.

Thursday’s ride certainly had more challenges than Wednesday. Not only from a hill perspective but because it’s in a valley there are a lot of confusing crosswinds. Both of us experienced stretches in which we were headed downhill but our speed made us think something was wrong with our bikes.

At times, we had gone up inclines faster than we had gone down these ones. While the wind wasn’t strong – certainly nowhere near as the tough headwinds Clive experienced in going from Williams Lake to 100 Mile House on Tuesday – it was just another little interesting tidbit about the beautiful highway that could use a publicity makeover.

Oh well, so much the better for our enjoyment as we continue on to Valemont Friday with the goal of reaching Jasper on Saturday.

• Nephew/son Brody has reached Kamloops, but plans to rest in knee another day. I really hope he can catch up because I don’t want to lose a C (the concertina he’s packing) from the blog’s title.

Kilometre count

Grant: Day 6 112 km; Total 608

Clive: Day 3 112 km: Total 334

Brody: We’re not sure, but he did pass all of his courses and will be receiving an engineering degree from UBC! Congrats Brody