From Rocky to Prairie...

Wow – it’s October already. Which unfortunately means our hols are almost over, but before we get to that point, how about an update on what we’ve been doing since Tuesday? Wellll…

Wednesday? From Golden we drove into Yoho National Park, over the Rogers Pass, catching a good glimpse of major roadworks just outside Golden – looked like the first stages of putting in a new bridge over Kicking Horse Pass. We stopped at Natural Bridge (name says it all – the effect of rushing water and glacial silt has cut a natural bridge across the Kicking Horse River) and Emerald Lake (likewise – astonishingly greeny-blue with the mountains as perfect backdrop, not to mention a very cheeky squirrel who clearly read the signs about not feeding or harassing the wildlife backwards – it was doing everything it could to obtain a free lunch from some other tourists taking a stop at the lake). Stopped in Field, a little town on the way to Lake Louise, for our lunch at Truffle Pig’s Bistro – a very good pizza with bison striploin on it – yum! Then went up to Takkakaw Falls - the name means ‘magnificent’ in Cree Indian – and they were! The water fair explodes out of the rock, fed by the Daly Glacier. And it was in this ‘magnificent’ spot that I popped the question – and Mary said yes! So it was in a very happy frame of mind that we proceeded towards Banff, taking a stop at the Spiral Tunnels, the Canadian Pacific Railway’s solution to a 4 in 5 gradient! After negotiating Banff’s busy streets, most of which are named after local wildlife (Bear, Moose, Elk, Lynx etc) we eventually found the Alpine Centre Hostel where we were going to spend the night. Small but cosy room, shared bathroom down the hall. Had dinner at the hostel and got talking to a couple from Winnipeg, Lue and Roy who were in the area to go to a family wedding at Lake Louise. Nice folk and we’ll send them an email when we get back to Perth.

Thursday we set out relatively bright and early for the Icefields Parkway, but not before we took in Lake Louise and Moraine Lake. The former is picture postcard material – icy turquoise blue with the Victoria Glacier in the background. If we’d had more time we’d have walked up to the teahouse further up the lakeshore. Moraine Lake, on the other hand, is seriously rugged with a huge pile of rocks at one edge (which I climbed to the top of) and lots of peaks around it. After that we drove, give or take a couple of comfort breaks, all the way up the Icefields Parkway (views spectacular from end to end) to Jasper. Kept our eyes peeled for wildlife on the road – saw some elk and lots of bighorn sheep. Grabbed a coffee-to-go in the town and then headed on to Hinton, about 75km further out where we’d got a motel room for two nights. Not much to Hinton, it basically runs either side of Highway 16 which goes all the way to Edmonton. Got dinner at Boston Pizza (and again on Friday night) and then went to bed – it had been a long day!.

Friday we drove back almost all the way to Jasper – almost, because we were going to take a look at Maligne (pronounced Maleen) Canyon, Medicine Lake and Maligne Lake, which are all along the same road just before you get to Jasper itself. Lots of bighorns beside and (occasionally!) on the road – some defensive braking was required! Did a loop walk through Maligne Canyon (great waterfalls) and headed back to the teahouse in the hopes of finding some lunch. Alas no! There was also a largish tour party at the canyon and the guy behind the counter declined to serve the two of us before he’d dealt with them (despite the fact that we just wanted a sandwich each). This and the apparent lack of anyone else around to help out made us decide to go somewhere else! So we carried on up past Medicine Lake, which is interesting to see because of the underground sinkholes that often drain part of the water away from the lake and leave it looking half-dried out, and reached Maligne Lake in time for a long-awaited lunch. Again the service was not brilliant, but better than further back down the road – we decided to put it down to end-of-tourist-season fatigue… Had a quick walk and took more photos before we headed back towards Hinton for dinner and bed.

Yesterday we got on the road early again, and went back down the Icefields Parkway towards Banff, with our ultimate destination being Calgary. It was a long journey, but we took plenty of breaks – two lots of waterfalls (Athabasca and Sunwapta), the Athabasca Glacier (we stopped off at the Icefield Centre and I walked right up onto the glacier, which was an interesting experience to say the least!) and Bow Lake (almost as blue as Lake Louise!). The change from the Rockies to the prairies was fairly dramatic – the landscape flattens out after Banff and Canmore and is much less photogenic. Got to the Travelodge in Calgary’s Motel Village around 6.30ish and went for dinner at Red Lobster, just round the corner – very good food and excellent service (if only we’d had servers like that at Maligne Canyon!) Crawled into bed completely tired out. Had to put the aircon on during the night, so the earplugs went in – which also drowned out the worst of the traffic noise from outside.

Today we had a bit of a lie-in and caught the C-Train into downtown, then on out to the Zoo. Weather was rather mixed with rain and clouds but the place was worth a visit – gorillas, Siberian tigers, stump-tailed macaques, hippos, giraffes, meerkats (sharing an enclosure with porcupines!) and lots of other birds and beasties. Downtown seemed rather dead but I guess that’s because it was Sunday – we’ve been told it will be much more buzzy tomorrow. Another visit to Red Lobster tonight saw us both have steak (what else do you try in cattle country???), me with lobster tail, Mary with shrimp. Now just about ready to nod off, so will close here. Tomorrow we plan to go up the Calgary Tower, have a walk round downtown and maybe visit the Glenbow Museum as well if we’ve time, before we prepare for our flight home on Tuesday.