25th July, 2006 Vancouver

Today sort of went to plan except that David fell off his bike! We were bike riding around Stanley Park and after a couple of hours David tried to get off his bikie on the wrong side and came a cropper grazing an elbow and a knee. The hired bike was really not the correct sized frame for him but that’s the problem with hiring. The locals were kind and offered help and a free bandaid was procured at the Third Beach kiosk where we went to obtain some lunch. Here, we ordered 2 Italian-type sandwiches but they were so big, we reduced the order to one and they cut it in half. Not bad for $6.50.

The park itself is the gem of Vancouver and the locals know it. It was crammed with people enjoying the open air and all its facilities despite the fact that it was a Friday, not yet the weekend. This is not like Centennial or Bicentennial Parks in Sydney. There is a lot to do. There are 2 sets of free tennis courts and a small oval rather like Bradman Oval but not as picturesque as it doesn’t have a white picket fence to set it off. There are 2 sand beaches within the park and another just outside but as they are harbour beaches there is no surf. There is a swimming pool to the west and a toddler’s water play area to the east of the peninsula. For the children there is also a farmyard of animals to explore. There are 2 bowling greens but while they have some well-tended colourful flowerbeds, the facilities are not even as good as our local Ryde Bowling Club. There are 4 restaurants, an aquarium, and 2 golf related sites. One is a putting area offering several different greens while the other is called a pitch and putt facility where you are allowed only 2 clubs – a wedge and a putter. There’s a creek, a meadow, a lake and a lagoon as well as gardens. You can fit a lot in 404 hectares. Around and through the park are roads and paths for pedestrians, cyclists and skaters. These are mostly well separated and 2-way which makes it easier to ride your bike as you can avoid the pedestrians. It would be impossible to cope with the crowds if they were not. As you walk, cycle or skate around, there are plenty of seats provided so you can stop and take in the views and the points of interest. There are kiosks and toilets too. The road to the Lion’s Gate Bridge runs through the park and you go under this bridge as you reach the northern part of the park. It connects West and North Vancouver to the CBD. Besides the views to West and North Vancouver across the Burrard Inlet; you can see Canada Place where a Holland America cruise ship was docked (we are going on this line to Alaska) and seaplanes take off and land extremely frequently from just near Canada Place. There’s the yacht club and a small naval establishment and two red and white lighthouses to pass by. Offshore a little are two interesting rocks. The first has a female statue on it. Originally it was supposed to be a replica of the maiden in Copenhagen Harbour’s but permission was denied so the sculptor added a wetsuit, flippers and goggles and she became the symbol of Vancouver’s links with the sea! The second is a volcanic plug with a tree or two atop it called Siwash Rock. The other rocks of interest, just outside the park, form a large inukshuk opposite the entrance to the inlet as if welcoming newcomers arriving by sea. I went back there, just to photograph a real (not tourist souvenir) inukshuk but it was surrounded by vivid blue temporary fencing!

The fencing is a precaution aimed, we guess, at stopping people from climbing on it to see the fireworks. Vancouver is in the middle of its Festival of Light where 4 countries have fireworks displays as a part of a competition. Then there is a mass display and a winner is announced. They proudly told me at the van park that about 400,000 people go to see it. Now, to a Sydneysider, this is no great event! We have New Year’s Eve fireworks, which the locals we spoke to here had not heard of. Still, it is an interesting twists, a fireworks competition (but we noted Sydney was not invited to compete).

Well, English Bay, near the inukshuk has been cordoned off with more blue fencing and 1 large barge sits offshore to let off the fireworks. The third display goes up tomorrow night but we won’t bother going.

In one area, near the beginning of our ride, there is a collection of replica totem poles of the west coast Indian tribes. Only they and the Alaska tribes have these poles, which are the equivalent of British coats of arms or reminders of past things. The tour buses were there in droves and the queues to the Ladies toilet long but there is a gift shop there where David found a nice red tie with a west coast Indian motif.

It was a great bike ride with plenty to see and do as you can tell. All in all we walked and rode over 10km today. Just outside the park are a lot of 1960’s plus unit blocks, which would be a great place to live for those not wanting yards as you have this fabulous resource just a few minutes walk away. There are several bicycle hire shops in Denman Street along with lots of cafes and restaurants just 5 minutes walk from the park and Robson Street, with all its shops intersects with Denman and so it is an easy bus ride along this shopping strip.

While Vancouver is an attractive, small city to live in and we love Stanley Park, the climate leaves a lot to be desired. Besides the winter cold to put up with, (you have to be a snow and ski lover here) the sun in summer is notable for its absence. When you wake up around 7am, the sun is shining but by 8.30am the clouds have rolled in from across the Pacific Ocean. Now, we shouldn’t have been surprised by this as we have driven through this along the Oregon Coast to the south but all the postcards naturally show Vancouver with stunning, Sydney-style sunshine! The cloud cover thickens during the morning and doesn’t lift until about 4pm! It is dark around 9pm. They call this summer?

Then there are the homeless of Vancouver. They are here in very large numbers pushing their shopping trolleys full of their grimy possessions. We don’t know what the government or charities are doing about it but it is a great blight on this city. Today’s newspaper had this quotation in it: “we now live in a province that lavishes millions of dollars on bobsledders and junkies, but nickel and dimes those with autism, fetal alcohol syndrome and the mentally challenged… and the families who worry about protecting them.” The government here has just withdrawn support benefits for intellectually disabled adults (over 19) with IQs greater than 70! Tough luck if your IQ is 71.

After Stanley Park, we took the bus to the Gaslight District, mentioned in earlier blogs, to do some last minute souvenir shopping. Did I mention previously that the bus tickets here are interesting? You can get on another bus within one and a half hours without paying any further money. So, after shopping, we used this facility and arrived back at the nearby supermarket, picking up things for tea for tonight and tomorrow night.

This will be our last blog for sometime as we expect the Internet connection on the cruise ship to be too expensive. What will happen in Alasaka with B & Bs we don’t know. Tomorrow, it is packing, emailing and posting numerous blogs, haircuts, last minute washing and perhaps a swim in the pool. But we do miss seeing the first squirrel of the morning.

24th July, 2008 Vancouver

Sleep was still elusive. I think I’m excited about leaving the van and entering into a new phase of our trip. Three months in a van seems to be about my limit. And there were the trains!

Rising early because we have to have the van back to the yard between 9 & 10am, we were quickly organised. We had a little problem finding the recommended petrol station for refilling the tank because they gave us the wrong directions. According to the hire company, the station was on the right when it was on the left. We were so busy looking to the right, we missed it and only stumbled across it when we turned around to retrace our steps. We then had to go round the block to continue on our way, only to find another petrol station 200m on the right.

Otherwise, the directions were fine and we were in the yard before 9. Obviously, we had done a great job on the van as several employees commented there was nothing to do and they were reluctant to charge us for the broken drinking glass but we were charged for the windscreen repair and of course the insurance excess over the awning. Peter, who dealt with us over the phone on this matter, suggested we might be able to claim this on our travel insurance. We will look into it when we get home. We also had to pay for some extra kilometres. David had pre-bought 12,400km but we did around 1200km more than this, which is about what David had estimated. We didn’t wish to pre-pay all that mileage in case we didn’t end up doing it all. Still, they were very friendly and said we were great clients who hadn’t caused them any worries, compared to some, and we informed them of the positive comments of the company replacing the battery at Bryce Canyon. Go West hadn’t quibbled about the price and paid in the spot via their credit card. They do offer good service; it was a shame that the van was old and had no a/c however. One of the employees was quite shocked to hear we had no a/c and went to Utah!

The driver, who originally picked us up at the Rosedale 11 weeks ago brought us back here. We had met a friend of his in Missoula who had contacted him about us and we had a long chat on the way back. He is Swiss or German as are a lot of the employees in this company. He spends the winter in Mexico and works only the summer here. We talked about the Olympics and the problems of Canada. They are very similar to our own except he described Canadian politicians as wimpy, afraid of small minority groups and criminals get better treatment than victims. Illegal immigrants are not turfed out, there is too much power to the Human Rights Commission so that freedom of speech is limited, and so on.

Mexico on the other hand is blatantly “become Mexican or leave” with its migrants. Illegal Chinese migrants apparently once had their hair sprayed bright green and were locked up and then quickly deported despite international protest. Mexican restaurants serve wonderful fresh food and a leisurely pace and you have to ask for your bill.

It was good to come back to the same hotel. We know where everything is. Our room was ready and this time we got the room we wanted with a window in the lounge area. We unpacked, did some better sorting that wasn’t possible in the van hire yard and had a tasty lunch downstairs at Rosie’s, the hotel restaurant.

In the afternoon, we played lift yoyo. Do you know how this game works? Well, our room is on the 14th floor and the washing machines are on the odd numbered floors and there is only one machine and one dryer on these floors. I had 4 loads! So we had one machine working on Floor 15 and one on Floor 17. Floor 13’s machine was out of order! Then we had to put things through the dryers. The washing takes 20 minutes, the dryers about 40. The lifts here are very slow. They were supposedly working on them when we were here last but nothing has changed! So, I was up and down and David eventually had to stop cleaning our dusty shoes and stay with the ones on Floor 15 while I dealt with Floor 17. I’d have rather snoozed!

Being too tired to cook tea, we walked across the road to an Italian restaurant. People think we are dissatisfied with the food as we only have one course now but we are trying to keep our weight down and we certainly didn’t need more after a bigger lunch than usual.

My body is still aching from the exercise of cleaning the van and tired from lack of sleep for the last few nights so it is off to bed. Oh, the luxury of a queen-size bed and a/c!

23rd July, Vancouver, Canada

Sleep was hard to find. There were 2 trains between 11pm and midnight and another 2 between 4 and 5am! We slept in which means we didn’t set the alarm and rose just before 8.

Still, we were first at the RV Wash site, which was good as it was very popular yesterday. This is a bay with high-pressure hoses, brooms with inbuilt soap dispensers and platform ladders on tracks down each side so you can get up and clean the roof. We spent 3 hours cleaning the outside although not all in the bay. We moved out to let others in and finished off the job by hand. Still, it isn’t free. We put $8 through the cleaning machines. You pay for everything here except wifi and showers.

In the afternoon, we did the inside leaving only the stove, sink and rangehood to be done after tea. Then, an icecream was in order and a short walk around the camping ground. We took some last minute pictures of weird numberplates, strange RV rig features and an inikshuk.

As we had finally found a small library in the laundry to swap our novels at, we read after tea, finished off the cleaning, showered and collapsed into bed. I enjoyed John Grisham’s “The Client” and think I’ll buy another of his to read on the plane home. It is years since I have had the luxury of time to read novels. I was too tired to even think about going to the pool but the van hasn’t looked as good since we drove it out of the hire yard 11 weeks ago!.

22nd July, 2008 Vancouver, Canada

What would you buy from a company called “The Brick”? Furniture and mattresses! I don’t think they are creating an image of comfort! We have seen a couple of its store now including one near Squamish this morning.

What’s more, Squamish is holding the world championships in “Logger Sports” in August! We guess that includes things like wood chopping.

The road from Vancouver to Whistler is called the Sea to Sky Highway but, although a dramatic road along the Howe Sound, some of it on the new highway cantilevered off the cliff face, it can’t compare to the Going-to-the Sun Road at Glacier National Park. Admittedly, we are a little prejudiced and the weather today did not help. It was grey with low-lying cloud until about 4pm but by then we were in Vancouver. We had hoped the cloud would burn off as it has in the past but it took too long to happen and so we did not see the Howe Sound in all its beauty.

On leaving Squamish, we were immediately struck by similarities to Yosemite National Park. Just south of town is a giant 700m-high granite monolith called the Stawamus Chief, attractive to rock climbers form all over the world because of its sheer cliff faces, and next to it a long waterfall, the Shannon Falls. These features were so prominent at Yosemite. The falls are a popular picnic area in a provincial park. Entry is free but you pay for parking which seems reasonable as you can pay as little as $1 an hour which is plenty of time to walk to the falls and then up a flight of stairs to the left of the falls for a closer view. Interestingly, all alcohol is prohibited from provincial parks so you can’t have wine or beer with your picnic lunch.

You climb higher as you go south so that you are warned to put chains on your cars for 25km (this must be a real nuisance in winter – chains on, chains off, chains on again for Whistler) and “Do not stop on bridges next 25km Torrent hazard”. Do people here actually stop on bridges in the middle of a busy highway? How do you know if a torrent is undermining a bridge BEFORE you drive onto it anyway?

The Sea to Sky Highway was 2 lanes wide but they are trying to make it 3 to 4 lanes wide for the Winter Olympics here in 2010. The road works continued today until we reached the junction with the Route 1 freeway. So poor David’s weaving in and out between plastic red warning poles continued. The road works are taking years and millions to complete. A less ambitious project, like free buses (as we had in Sydney in 2000) would have been a lot cheaper and environmentally friendlier. Near Furry Creek, the road is jammed between the cliff face and the railway track, which sits on the very edge of the water so that there is no room to widen the road. Consequently, they will end up with a bottleneck here at least, despite all their road works.

Porteau Provincial Park forms a little promontory sticking out into the sound and it affords a view back towards the bottleneck area as well as views across the sound. We then made a short detour into Lion’s Bay. This turned into a torturous route down the hillside, back left under the highway, and up the hill again. We were stuck behind the garbage truck with no chance of overtaking. There were double yellow lines (that doesn’t stop Canadians, a 6-berth motorhome overtook us at speed over double yellow lines yesterday on a narrow winding road - scary stuff!) and no indication of whether the road went to the left or the right at the wall at the top of the roadway. It turned out to be a T intersection. We followed more arrows, and the garbage truck, to the left and downhill again until we were able to squeeze past the truck as it entered the gallery and café parking lot we were also looking for. The delay didn’t seem to bother the truck driver. In fact, no one seems terribly rushed either here in Canada or in the US. They aren’t paid that much, get few of our work privileges (no 17% loading, no long service leave, no leave without pay etc) so perhaps they don’t have any incentive to speed up.

Lion’s Bay is supposed to be dominated by the West Lion and the East Lion (remnants of a volcanic cone) but we saw neither. From amongst the houses on this narrow road, it was hard to find a spot to look upwards. Interestingly, this little community suffered a similar fate to Thredbo, a landslide that killed 2 people in 1983 and led to the funnelling of water off the hillside into large culverts and then the sound.

The art gallery was nice and we purchased a very small, framed pewter inukshuk plaque. As I explained early in this blog, an inukshuk is a native symbol of man and made of rough stones. This is the symbol for the games but it is also popular with Canadians. Near water, you can find piles of stones some in this shape. We wanted one to remind us to build our own when we get home. We can’t afford a big one, transporting it home would be a nightmare and the touristy ones as jewellery, of jade or small smooth stones glued together just don’t look right. The gallery had some weird carvings from Patagonia near where my mother’s family once lived. The artist also had the name of David Cartwright Crompton! If they had been attractive, we might have been tempted by the coincidence, but we weren’t. It is the gallery attached to the previous studio of local artist. We met him and his wife, who runs the gallery, but weren’t interested in his works. They are very bright and colourful but did not remind us of the Vancouver we have experienced. When we were here last, it was cold, grey and wet. Now it is cool and grey. One of his prints would have been out of place anywhere but our back verandah and they were too expensive for there.

The wife waved us off as we left with our little purchase and wove our way back to the main highway and on to Horseshoe Bay. There are no extra points for correctly guessing the shape of this popular spot. It is about the size of Circular Quay and the ferries for Victoria and other islands dock here. We shall, in fact, return to Horseshoe Bay when we come back from Victoria Island in a few weeks time. There isn’t much here except parking lots (strictly 2hours only), restaurants and gift shops but it has an attractive marina and we decided to create an experience since we had not had the pleasure of enjoying the sound. So we had lunch at The Boathouse Restaurant there overlooking the marina and watching the ferries come and go. They specialise in seafood, David’s favourite, but we ordered Blackened halibut based on an inadequate description in the menu. Blackened obviously means darkened by hot Cajun type spices (not our favourite!) and not char grilled as we supposed. The skin was too hot so that the fish had no flavour. It was a shame really as the decore, service and wine were all lovely. It is a picturesque spot but a nightmare of a place to live with its ferry traffic and narrow roads. Still, it seems to be gaining popularity, like Lion’s Bay, with Vancouverites who want to leave town but still have the city nearby. What’s more, you can buy a water view still, some prices at Lion’s Bay reached over $2mCAN.

Our rather disappointing day then ended in rather a flurry as we found ourselves roaring down the freeway through the suburbs of Vancouver. This was an easy route as all we had to do was stay on this road until we reached Exit 37. The US / Canadian practise of numbering their exits and placing these numbers on maps really makes their freeways etc so much easier than our own. Australia should adopt the same practice. We decided to shop at a mall near our camping ground where we purchased a hard-sided airline cabin bag to protect our pottery for the rest our journey. It couldn’t be left to the airport baggage handlers! There were a few supplies we needed to top up for Alaska, some traveller’s cheques to cash and then it was off to Burnaby Cariboo RV Park. This is one of the best in British Columbia and recommended by our van hire company as it is very conveniently placed for us to drop off our van on the 24th.

Out in front of the park office is a large inukshuk about one and a half metres high. Behind the office are a sun deck, lounge, games and fitness rooms upstairs and a pool, showers, toilets and a large laundry downstairs. Each site is separated from the next by a 2-3 metre high hedge providing privacy and there are plenty of trees to form a pleasant green backdrop. Unfortunately, the train line runs along one side and at an angle across the back fence. Fortunately, we were on the opposite side of the park! Thankfully, they didn’t blast their horns but they are long goods trains with up to 150 wagons so it takes a lot of “clickity-clack” for them all to pass by at slow speed.

I did some exercise in the pool as we had done little all day and tried to sleep. Tomorrow is a big day. We have to clean the van from top to toe!

21st July, 2008 Squamish, BC, Canada

If yesterday was a little staid just following the rivers, then today was a day of adventure. Kamloops is about 20 to 25 km long yet only has about 80,000 people as it is spread out along the valley from east to west. Modern homes are being built up on the slopes overlooking the town but often there are a hundred and one versions of the same house. It has the feel of an American city with Costco and large malls on the outskirts of town. Still, with water form the river, most homes at least sit on a patch of grass.

After filling up with petrol, we drove onto the Rte 1 and by passed the city centre, which has a few high-rise buildings. We passed through a narrow gorge and had the unpleasant experience of a stone thrown up by a truck, hitting the windshield and chipping it. Oh well, here’s hoping this too is covered by insurance! To have travelled all those miles without incident and then, to have this happen on the main route across the country is sad. This route was supposedly scenic but until you come to Kamloops Lake, this is nonsense. At the lake they are building a new resort estate. The golf course is green and the new houses large and expensive but the view back to Kamloops is excellent. Still, the hills are steep, brown and barren. It’s a dramatic view but not pretty.

The “lakeside community” of Savona is another example of a non-scenic town. I took several photos to show that indeed it is often a dump for loads of discarded machinery and those people who live there have the joy of the trains running straight through the middle of this tiny community clinging to the lakefront. Further along we saw a sign advertising an RV park proclaiming “NO TRAINS”. Obviously, I am not alone in my belief that too many lovely spots in BC and Alberta are ruined by trains passing through at all hours of the night.

Along the road we saw more cultivation of a crop under black mesh raised about 2m above the ground on poles. If I read the sign properly, this was Pacific Canadian Ginseng. We had seen some yesterday on our way into Kamlooops. West of Walchin we saw water being pumped up to irrigate a floodplain now stranded high above the present valley floor. Another property had over 34 corrals side-by-side- but we could see no cattle or horses to put in them although adjacent fields were being cultivated for hay. However, as with so many sites, there was nowhere to pull off the road to photograph them. The rest of the valley vegetation was saltbrush. Above the saltbrush were cliffs in the early stage of hoodoo development. It was so like Utah without the colour and the good hoodoos!

Although this is the main road across the whole country, it is still only 2 lanes wide! We turned off it and onto Rte 97 to travel 11km to Hat Creek Ranch. This is an original site along the Gold Rush Trail of the 1850s and has been maintained in its 1901 form. You can take a tour of the 16 original buildings on site but I just photographed the outside of the home used to accommodate pioneer travellers. It is classic Georgian in design and very similar to homes of the period in Australia except that it is made entirely of painted wood. It certainly must have been a welcomed sight for those travelling up the Gold Rush Trail which would have been just desert since it would have been before any irrigation.

After that we followed route 99. The first part from Hat Creek to Lillooet was part of the Cariboo Highway / Gold Rush Trail. Lillooet was Mile 0 on the Cariboo Trail to the goldfields of Barkerville. Other towns north of Hat Creek Ranch are named for their distance from Lillooet, such as 70 Mile House and 100 Mile House but they are off our route.

I guess this is where our days adventure really started. At first the scenery was a little reminiscent of hilly Hill End in drought except the trees were pines trees, many of which were dead. We don’t know if it is the drought or a disease killing the pines but so many were brown despite having reached good heights and being well-established. The homes along the route did little to improve the scenery as they had no lawns or gardens and were generally surrounded by numerous abandoned and rusty vehicles. At one place there were more than 20 while others had between 5 and 12 cars, trucks or buses, left to the elements. We realised from the signage, that this was First nations land. We were sadly then not surprised.

Then, we drove through Marble Canyon with its steep rocky mountains on the right and a couple of lakes to the left. The largest lake was a beautiful blue/green combination and was often edged with tall purple wildflowers a little like cosmos. Along the lake was a provincial park and numerous homes. It would be a very pleasant spot, compared to the surrounding areas, but rather remote.

From here, our adventure really began as we trekked from one valley to the next, up over passes and down into valleys. The mountains grew taller and the pines thicker at the sub-alpine level. Below this was an elevated old flood plain, irrigated for farming before the valley descended into steep, bare-sided gorges occupied by the Fraser River. The Canadian National Railway has a line running through this area. Before descending down a gradient of 10% into Fountain Flat, there is a magnificent view of brown river rapids, the canyon, the road down, the railway weaving down through a rock tunnel, the distant town on the elevated old flood plane and the pined hills behind it.

The first major town we encountered was Lillooet, an historical town with wide streets so ox-carts could turn around in it but we didn’t venture in, taking the bypass. The scene before you come to the town was very similar to that of Fountain Flat but not quite as dramatic. One sign caught our attention, “Lillooet Ministerial Welcomes You”. Now a ministerial has a quite different meaning here. It is our equivalent of the “Minister’s Fraternal”, the group of Christian ministers in the community.

Climbing up out of Lillooet, you reach Sefton Lake Reservoir which is a hydro-electric dam but quite dramatic as the steep mountain slopes plunge into the dam. The railway clings to a tiny ledge just above the water level. As you drive further on, there is a tall waterfall and a hairpin bend before the descent on a 13% grade takes you down into the next valley.

This is the valley of Cayoosh Creek which you cross many times along with is tributaries as you drive on. We slowed down to cross a one lane bridge where many vehicles belonging to a film crew provided a manoeuvring challenge. It was only the first of many one-lane bridges that faced us. But the challenges grew as the road surface deteriorated considerably. There was no where to pull off the narrow, winding road to give poor David a break or to have lunch. There are several provincial park picnic spots along the creek but the road in was too steep or too narrow or the signs were right on top of the entry and it was too late to stop. Turning around was not a good idea. The road was quite busy and you never knew what was coming around the curve. Some of the side roads were marked “Road Deactivated”. Now that’s interesting wording!

After descending some way along grades of up to 13%, we eventually, came to Duffey’s Lake. At its end was the lovely snow-capped Mt Rohr, the first of such mountains we saw today. At its other end, where we ate lunch, the lake is choked with logs from dead trees. Interestingly, the Indians have always called this lake ‘tek’ which means ‘log jam’. So the logs are not something new. This route from Duffey’s Lake to Lillooet is a traditional Indian trading route and it is nice to know that we followed it

Next we climbed up and then down further grades of up to 15% into Pemberton Valley. By this stage David’s neck was painful from the tension of driving but if we thought things were going to improve as we approached more populated areas, we were wrong.

We had planned to stay the night at Whistler, the famous ski area, 32km south of Pemberton. However, the one camping ground there was full. They said we could camp in their parking area in the full sun for just $36 and use all the facilities. It was over $55 a night to have a site with hook ups! We declined their offer. Whistler isn’t an easy place to see. It has been heavily planned since the late 1970s into 3 main villages. Each village is separate and appears to consist largely of very expensive, fancy ski chalets and motels. Consequently, there is no obvious centre and we didn’t have the time to spend a few days there searching out its charms, which we couldn’t afford anyway!

By this time, David was quite frustrated. We decided to go on but the situation only worsened. South of Whistler, all the road works for the Olympics meant he was now weaving in and out of red temporary road markers, watching for increasing then decreasing speed signs as they fluctuated from 30kph to 80kph. One minute you we told to prepare to stop, the next there was no one there to stop you. Next you were squeezed over to the right, then you were being directed to the left. Lovely viewpoints were closed off and you were not allowed to make left hand turns which meant the next provincial park site was off limits. The next place, Alice Lake Provincial Park, was also full. There was another park supposedly on the other side of the road. So we thought we’d try there. Down the side road we went until we came to a fork. We were directed straight ahead but then realised that the park we wanted was to the left. There was nowhere to turn around and the vegetation was thick and mosquito breeding. Eventually, we found a driveway to turn into and back tracked. Then we discovered that he park we were heading for was a further 14km along this narrow backcountry road! What’s more, it was Indian run. We have avoided such establishments since our experience at Lake Quinalt and the site was not in our guide so we did not know what we would find at the end of 14km. We turned around and went back to the roadworks!

By this stage we were at Squamish, an unusual name, but apparently very popular for is outdoor activities. We were not surprised when the first place was full. We guessed that the nearby one would also be full and were discussing free camping or driving right through to Vancouver. Fortunately, the second site had a vacancy so here we are at Squamish, not Whistler as planned.

Compared to Kamloops, this place is wonderful yet our guide rates it’s physical features as much lower. There isn’t as much shade but we have a fully shaded spot. The roads are better, the grass is alive and the toilet/showers rate 10/10 (a separate grading system to the general physical appearance of a campground in our guide). They are new, clean and have automatic toilets, taps and paper towel dispensers! It costs more than Kamloops but we paid it willingly. I’d rather pay $36 for a comfy, clean, cool and shaded site than $22 for dusty dessert site with dirty facilities. David has just returned form his shower and given it the thumbs up. Now its my turn.

20th July, 2008 Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada

What do I write about today? Basically, it served as a long day’s drive in our effort to return Her Majesty’s Truck to Vancouver. There were few highlights and few were expected.

First we saw beautiful reflections on Yellowhead Lake, one of a series of small lakes as you leave Jasper and enter into Mt Robson Provincial Park. Then we admired the moose-friendly marshy areas with their reed and vivid green grass surrounds to shallow lakes. These were particularly attractive just before Moose Lake. Then there was Mt Robson itself. This is the tallest mountain in Canada at 3954m. It is a beautiful, impressive mountain and was topped with a fine layer of cloud as we stopped to photograph it.

Along the road there were lots of wildflowers with the red Indian paintbrush, the white ox-eye daisy and the purple Fireweed predominating. Later in the day, yellow flowers came to the forefront along the North Thompson River.

We followed rivers most of the day. First, it was the Fraser River, one of the premier salmon rivers in Canada, as it flowed from Mt Robson Provincial Park to Tete Jaune. Tete Jaune is French for Blonde Head and this river, along with a highway, a town and a pass, is named after a guide who first showed fur trappers the way through the mountains. Yellowhead Pass is the lowest pass in the Rockies at 1131m, just 70m above Jasper. I guess, this means that this individual was an Indian and a blonde American Indian at that!

Then it was the North Thompson River that we followed from Tete Jaune to Kamloops and we will continue to follow it for a while tomorrow. This river ends up flowing into the Fraser River at Lytton where we shall meet it again on our train journey. The Fraser flows into the Pacific at Vancouver.

Just north of the little hamlet of Little Fork, we were held up for half an hour by a very bad traffic accident. We think a car came out of a layby and was hit by another car, probably speeding. One car ended up in a ditch beside the road while the other, more badly damaged, rolled and left numerous parts scattered across the highway. The traffic jam on the other side of the accident was 2km long. Luckily, we were able to pass while the crash investigators got to work as the traffic took turns using the layby as a detour around the accident. It was the first serious accident we have seen in all our travels and upsetting. We’ll never know what happened or the extent of injuries suffered but an accident did not come as a surprise. Several times today cars passed us crossing over double yellow lines. People are so impatient and unwilling to abide by speed limits. Along the Fraser River valley they are putting in a pipeline, possible for oil or gas, and there were lots of covered speed restriction signs along that route because it is Sunday. Goodness knows how long it would have taken us to do the route on a weekday and how frustrated drivers behind us would have become because we obey the limits.

As the river widened so did the valley. The mountains shrunk in size and the weather warmed. Many areas had experienced fire and the pines were burnt. An increasing number of other pines were just plain dead! Nevertheless, Kamloops was a shock.

Kamloops is half way approximately between Vancouver and the Rockies. The Rockies are just one of a series of mountains behind Vancouver according to the taxi driver who first took us to our hotel in Vancouver nearly 3 months ago. So what would you expect - mountains, cool green slopes, more wildlife? No, Kamloops is semi-arid desert! In fact, looking at the dry, almost barren hills that surround it and the grey saltbrush vegetation, we’d say it was desert or the area was in drought. The dead pines have increased in number and the slopes along the river here look like the waste dumps of a mining enterprise. What’s more it is hot. Still, we have just one night here and four more nights in our ‘truck’ before we hand it back to its owners in Coquitlam, Vancouver.

We came here because we knew it had a Good Sam park. We could have stopped at Clearwater or McLure, which would have been much cooler, but it was too early in the day. By lengthening today’s run, we shorted a very long day tomorrow to the skiing town of Whistler, which is to play a prominent role in the Winter Olympics in 2010. As it was, we arrived here at about 3:30pm. The park is a dump and not worthy of a Good Sam rating. The ground is poorly maintained gravel, dirt and dead grass. The toilets, which are rated at 8.5 plus out of ten, are not impressive. In the women’s block, the ceilings have been partially removed, the painted floor is all chipped and the tiles heavily stained. On the bright side, there is a breeze (a hot one), we have a little shade on our van, there are no mozzies and it only cost $22.50CAN! We supposedly had free Wifi but it was so slow all we could do was check our emails. We could eat outside tonight. In fact, I am sitting outside typing up this blog with the computer plugged into our van’s external power point.

We stop here overnight on our Rocky Mountaineer train trip in a few weeks’ time. Thankfully, we will be booked into a motel and it better have air conditioning!

Sorry, there is no wildlife to report tonight but the temperature is dropping as the sun sets. At least with the time zone change the sun will set earlier than the last few weeks. Still, it will get worse again as we get closer to Alaska. Going to bed at 10m in daylight isn’t much fun.

19th July, 2008 Jasper National Park

Looking around this and other Canadian parks we have noticed a definite change in vans here. There are a lot fewer big bus style RVs than in the US. Instead, caravans are all the go and there are many collapsible trailer campers where both ends are pushed out and the sides are fabric. The vans tend to be smaller than we saw in the US (possibly more holiday use than permanent) as well as some older models. Even the 5th wheeler style, the most common towed van we saw in the US, are often shorter and except that we have only seen one pop top van, the camping markets seems pretty close to the Australian market. One difference that continues to stand out with caravans is the towing vehicle. They use pick-up trucks (big utes). These are large 2 or 4 door, often 4 wheel drive, such as Ford F250 or F350 models. This type of truck is particularly suited to 5th wheelers as the towing hitch is mounted on the rear tray. However, with the smaller Canadian caravans we have started to see cars being used for towing.

Everywhere here, the signs are in French and English, which I have rather enjoyed. It offers one the challenge of translating with a bit of assistance. I am sure that if I lived here I would take up my French studies again from high school. I still like the French language. From a language teacher’s point of view there are several interesting points. Firstly, French seems rather wordy, as they cannot create compound nouns such as campground (terrain de camping), firewood (bois de chauffage) and wildflowers (fleurs sauvages). “Observe quiet hours 10pm to 7am” becomes riere de ne pas faire de brui entre 22h et 7h. To shorten the three words for ‘please’, they use just the initials SVP. Some of our short words are very lengthy in French, for example, pets (les animaux favoris). Word order is also interesting as they do not appear to combine two verbs with a conjunction. Therefore, “Do not approach or feed wildlife” needs two ‘nots’ in French – “Ne vous approaches pas des animaux et ne les nourissez pas” (literally – Not you approach pas the animals and not them feed pas. And, of course, as I remembered, the adjective comes after the noun.

One curiosity today was the slogan for the state of Saskatchewan, “Land of living skies” which promoted me to ask David if he had ever seen a dead one! We guess it is another view of the Montana slogan, “Big Sky Country”.

The park around Jasper is dominated not by snow-capped mountains as further south but by glacial lakes. Maligne Lake was on the itinerary for today and fortunately the weather had improved greatly and we started the day in bright sunshine, not a cloud in the sky. We booked our seats for a boat trip as Maligne (pronounced ma-LEAN, = wicked in French) is a very large lake and the best views are at the southern end. We could not walk that far and back neither did we have the time for it. The most famous view of any Canadian lake is of Spirit Island in Maligne Lake, which is about half way up the lake and where the boat stops and turns around. We could not get on a boat until 11:30am but that was fine; it allowed us time to stop on the way there. The drive takes an hour at least.

First we stopped at a lookout where MaligneValley joins the Athabasca Valley and you can see back to Jasper. The Maligne, being created by only a small glacier in the last Ice Age, is actually a hanging valley 100m above the floor of the Athabasca. It amazed us to think that once the Athabasca Glacier we had seen at the Icefield Centre actually once reached Jasper and beyond. It must have been gigantic. Water flowing from the Maligne Valley now has to negotiate this level difference between the valleys and in doing so has carved a very deep an exceedingly narrow canyon between the two. This was our next stop but the canyon is so deep that, in the early morning, it was too dark to photograph so we decided to come back on our return trip.

The road passes along the eastern shore of Medicine Lake affording us some beautiful reflections. We were fortunate to photograph these as by the time we reached the end of the lake, the breeze was strong enough to have obliterated the reflections completely. Medicine Lake is of great spiritual interest to the native population as they saw it as “Bad Medicine”. This is because the 20-deep water gradually disappears over the summer and winter and they did not know where it went. However, we now know that the bottom of the lake is severally cracked and the water disappears underground to resurface into the serene Lake Beauvert where we had lunch a couple of days ago. This forms what they claim to be the longest underground river in the world.

Along the eastern shore of Medicine Lake are two wonderful chains of arêtes called the Malinge Range and northern end of the Queen Elizabeth Range. It was like gaining a double dose of the Endless Chain Range we had seen on the Icefield Parkway. Only a narrow valley separates these two although they are a little offset. What a delight to a geographer’s eyes!

In this area there are more big signs warning you to look out for caribou, which, of course, we didn’t see. There are several caribou herds in this area that do not migrate in winter but have learnt to live off the lichen that hangs from pine branches even though this is very low in nutrients. Unfortunately, until recently, the herds had been in decline so they are most anxious to keep the ones they have. The caribou’s hooves are splayed and spread widely to distribute their weight more evenly on the snow otherwise they could not remain here in the winter. Caribou are bigger than deer but smaller than elk, while the moose is the biggest.

Before coming to Maligne Lake, we saw a smooth brown mountain to our left. This is Opal Mountain and it looks like soft brown suede although the back of it, which we saw a little of from the water, is grey and rocky. Quite strange!

Maligne Lake is seen from it northern end where an attractive cafeteria and gift shop have been built. It is also the end of an ill-fated road to the Icefield Parkway, which was to by-pass Jasper and shorten the route. However, after spending millions, they aborted the project to save the caribou whose traditional routes would have been destroyed by the road (there is a speed limit of 60km/h). This left them with an expensive embarrassment until they moved the park warden’s house to the end of the road, over the smart new bridge. So now the warden has the most expensive driveway in Canada.

Because Maligne is a narrow valley and heavily glaciated the mountains are dramatic on either side and become higher and more peaked into unusual shapes as the boat goes further down the lake. At first, Spirit Island does not appear anything to rave about, just a flat island with some pines on it. It isn’t even an island as it is connected to the side of the lake by a narrow low-lying patch of qrass and rocks. However, when you get off the boat and walk up to the traditional viewing platform, the view is indeed very lovely.

They give you 10 minutes to snap at the view but when we were called back by the boat’s horn, we discovered that the boat had a technical problem and so we would have to wait 15 minutes for a new boat to come and rescue us. Some seemed unhappy. One Indian family from Quwait had planned to go on to the Columbian Icefield and then down to Lake Louise, Banff and onto Calgary that day! Our minds boggled. We had taken 6 days to do that. What would they see? They would have no time to even stop for photos although the most senior man had a camera. Anyway, they still hadn’t left Maligne when we did and we stopped for a late lunch in the carpark! However, we weren’t unhappy as we ended up having 40 minutes to soak in the view.

We stood out on the stern for almost all of the 37 minute journey up the lake, taking photos. Ten people were allowed there at any one time but there were never more than 9 as it was quite chilly and windy. At one point, a young Canadian woman came out and ordered us back inside the boat so others could come out. Several went in but 6 of us remained. What was the point? Only 2 came out and they quickly went back inside including Miss Bossy.

On the way back, when it was getting more and more overcast, we stayed inside thinking we would be whisked back to the dock as they would need to get the times back on schedule. But no, we kept stopping and slowing down as a large number of canoes were now on the lake. The wake of the boats is enough to upset these simple craft even though the lake is wide and the tour boats go straight down the centre and the canoes generally cling to the lakeshore. As the water temperature is just 4 degree C and hypothermia is a very serious risk the boat skippers have to pickup out of the water anyone that falls out of a canoe. The guide explained that so many people want the ‘authentic’ Canadian experience of paddling a red canoe on a wilderness lake.

On arriving back at the shore we wandered through yet another souvenir shop and photographed 2 more extra large soft animal toys (bear and moose) standing guard nearby before making our way back to Jasper.

We saw a black bear! You will note from our restrained previous sentence that we were less excited this time. We had just missed seeing a bear and her cub moments before when we pulled off the road where numerous humans were scrambling through the bush with cameras. We never for a moment thought they were stupid enough to pursue a female bear with a cub into the undergrowth but they were! We couldn’t miss the second bear as a tour bus had stopped in the middle of the road with its emergency flashers on. They had nowhere to get off the road and cars were also stopped on the other side so that there was barely enough road for a small car to pass between them. I managed a couple of shots and we were very pleased until the bus driver released air from his brakes to startle the bear. It was too busy munching and wasn’t giving his passengers a good facial view. The driver did this three times, startling the poor bear and eventually causing it to flee into the trees. This was not on! Furthermore, all the poor people waiting patiently on the other side of the road for the bus to move on so they could see this creature, saw nothing. Talk about inconsiderate. In town, we detoured to the park centre and reported the bus driver giving his bus number and license plate details. The officer immediately went to find the “Conflict Officer” to report “bear harassment”. (All bear sightings are supposed to be reported to the parks people and some other rarer creatures as well, of course.)

We followed this driver into the canyon carpark but kept our tongues. It was better for the parks people to deal with him. Unfortunately, the canyon was still not good for photography and probably was too deep ever to be so. We were, however, able to photograph a beautifully smooth deep pothole on the side of the canyon that now was well above the canyon floor and filled with green ferns and moss.

To cheer ourselves up after reporting the bus driver, we indulged in some comfort food. It was only Nestle’s ice cream scoops in a cone but we had trouble finishing it. We asked for 2 scoops but in Canada, like the US, 2 scoops are 4 of our scoops! At least, they had more and better flavours than in the US.

Thoroughly cheered, we went off to find some wine and stroll through a shop we had seen that morning when booking the boat tickets. We had a giggle or two over some cards and sayings on various articles. One reminded me so much of a fellow teacher.

Two women are seriously shopping.
Woman 1: The doctor said that to stay healthy we should exercise and buy fresh food.
Woman 2: What! I thought he said accessorise and buy nice shoes!

We like Jasper. It isn’t as sophisticated or as classy as Banff but perhaps it is more us. It is relaxed and not so busy. We never had problems with parking as there are several parking areas along the railway line and a special parking area for the large RVs.

Which reminds me, I haven’t been tempted to buy clothes here, except some touristy T-shirts. I haven’t seen a decent dress shop yet. Most of the shops have terrible fashions. Perhaps back in Vancouver things might be better but we saw nothing the few days we were there before.

Now, we were doubly cheered, which was just as well, as we had to negotiate the button-pushed showers again. David suggested I try the other block. Yes, there are 2 blocks of showers in a 3km long park and they are side by side! It may save the national aprk service money in plumbing but it increases pollution as people drive to the showers. Well, this one didn’t scream at me and it did last for 13 seconds between pushes but it started off lukewarm and was cold by the time I had to rinse out the second lot of shampoo! Naturally, David had a shorter shower and missed the cold water torture!

But, I was cheered again by the deer, as 7 doe and 4 fawns grazed near our van for nearly 2 hours as we prepared and had dinner. They have dark brown necks and heads with tan bodies and then blonde backsides with short tails. We have seen so much more wildlife, except bison, in Canada. Perhaps, we should have done the gondola at Lake Louise; another person said that’s where they and others had seen grizzlies.

Finally, the new wildflower of the day was the Western Wood Lily which is basically a small version of orange liliums I buy from the florist at home. We saw it in several patches but never where there was an opportunity to stop the van and photograph it.

18th July, 2008 Jasper, Alberta Canada

Jasper is having a wet, cool summer but fortunately, like last night, most of the rain falls in the evening. Still it wasn’t inviting weather for any of our planned activities, as they needed sun on the mountains and distant views. This is not possible when the mountains are shrouded in threatening grey clouds that seem to appear on one mountain then disappear only to shroud a different one. A possible trip was to go up the gondola here for a view of the area but what was the point. By the time you got up there, goodness knows what you would see. Once we heard thunder and you wouldn’t want to be in a gondola in a thunderstorm. Apparently, we had a one last night about 11pm but we were both asleep by then and it wasn’t powerful enough to wake us. A trip to Mt Edith Cavell was on the books but we found out the road is not recommended for vehicles over 6m and we are over that. We may not have seen much of the mountain but the walk to the rapidly retreating Angel Glacier might have been nice.

So we left the site bound for the town to update our blogs and check our emails instead. A herd of deer were peacefully grazing on the meadow near the dump site. They hardly even looked up when several vans stopped within feet of them. I clicked a few photos. It was the closest we have been to them, and the tamest deer we have encountered, but we still didn’t get out of the vehicle. Deer are so graceful.

By now we were 16 days of blogs behind in our posting. There is a reasonably cheap place in town and, as we had everything ready to go on a USB, it took less than an hour, working out at under $3CAN. The couple running the business were ex-school teachers who had recently been to the North Island of NZ and quickly identified our accent. The wife would love to come to Australia and wanted to chat. They have friends who were in Australia recently having swapped motorhomes with an Aussie couple who wanted to come to Canada. We thought their friends were crazy. They came to Australia from Dec to Feb and we recommended Sept as a better time.

By this time, we had decided that our only option was a hike. We have waterproof jackets so this is not a problem so long as there is no lightening about. The Valley of the Five Lakes appealed although it was not in David’s list of star rated sights. As a hike, it was great exercise but we wouldn’t recommend it. The brochures said it was a popular and easy family hike. Easy? David said it was for Mr and Mrs Easy and their children only! We should have known better. This string of 5 lakes were created by damming with glacial moraine so it was up and down steepish moraine ridges for a lot of the two and a quarter hour hike.

The lakes are just titled with ordinal numbers so that you have Fifth Lake, Fourth Lake etc. Initially the path is scattered with touches of red, white and blue, well, purplely-blue wildflowers. The red was on the bearberry shrubs. This was the thickest concentration of this shrub we had seen outside our camping ground here. It needs to be thick as one bear can eat up to 250,000 berries a day when they are available. The shrub itself is nondescript but the green berries ripen to a light rosy red about the size of cotoneaster berries but they are oval shaped. Then the white was from the Common Yarrow, which we have seen so often. The blue was the Common Harebell, a lovely simple bell shaped flower up to 2cm long. I first noticed this wildflower in our camping ground yesterday when I went exploring for a path to the showers but here in the bush it was very plentiful.

After a short while, the path descended to a reedy swamp, the Wabasso Creek wetlands, crossed by a double-planked bridge. We always think of Little John in the Robin Hood series as we cross such bridges. We were informed in the brochure that this was beaver territory but we didn’t spy any. Then, we climbed the first really steep hill through a meadow. Here I spied our first Brown–eyed Susans. At home, we have the black-eyed ones but here the centres develop a deep rusty colour. The yellow petals have 3 lobes and fall backwards, away from the traditional daisy shape as the flower prepares to set seed, thrusting the rusty centre into prominence.

As the walk progressed, we also saw our first tiny sedum with its fleshy leaves less than 3mm long and taller yellow flower stalks. There were nodding onion flowers as well. They are 3 petalled tulip shaped flowers of deep pink covered in 3 more tulip petals in light pink. The unopened buds form round white balls in the centre of the flower spray.

The path takes you between the Fourth and the Fifth Lakes, via a bridge over a cascade that joins the two small lakes. Fifth Lake has 2 tethered rowing boats near the shore and a BBQ well supplied with cut logs. This was 55 minutes into the walk. How did the boats get there? Who keeps the wood supplied? There is a group called the Friends of Jasper National Park (most parks have such groups), which maintains signage along the walks, so perhaps they are responsible for the wood. This lake has a small island which is the home of nesting loons (the birds, not loonies).

From here on, we were accompanied by gorgeous, iridescent blue dragonflies about 3cm long. They darted in and out in front of our feet but were too quick to catch with our cameras.

Once we had walked over another moraine ridge, we had a better view of the Fourth Lake with a mountain backdrop. It turned out to be true, each lake is a slightly different shade with deep blue to light green, with turquoise in between. It seemed to depend on the depth of the water and the colour of the rocks littering the base of each lake in varying swaths. The First Lake is the greenist and the shallowest with a swampy edge so that we had a quick look at it and decided to finish the walk by tracking back to the loop path rather than proceeding in the long walk around both sides of it. This would have added at least another 2km to the 4.2km walk.

The loop path back to the original track turned out to be no picnic either with several very steep sections so that we were quite tired and sweaty by the trail’s end. We could have taken off our light-weight jackets and the detachable trouser bottoms of our hiking pants but then we would have been mozzie food. By sweating it out, perhaps we may have lost a little more weight.

However, we went and spoilt that by having tea and cake in the only café/bakery we could find in town. We were too tired to do anything much more strenuous and going straight back to sit amongst pines in the campground seemed too boring. David tried the Black Forest cake while I had a brownie topped with a thin slice of cheesecake so that it tasted like a chocolate cheesecake. They served loose tealeaves in a deep strainer inside a mug! At last, no paper cup of water accompanied by a dry teabag! We sat at the breakfast style bar at the front window of the shop and looked out at the traffic and the railway line. We moseyed in and out of a few shops but mostly bought postcards. Most of the souvenirs we have seen before in shop after shop or are too big to bring home anyway. I have my Anasazi Indian pottery and am content with that.

Behind the railway line and a stand of pines is Jasper’s industrial area and here we went to get a new battery for our smoke detector. We looked briefly up at the gondola route but threatening grey clouds were once again enveloping the mountains around it. In fact, each time we have looked at the gondola we have seen few gondola cars riding the wires. This is obviously not as popular a site as the Banff gondola. Once we saw two cars, one going up and one coming down but all other glimpses revealed not one car dangling from the wires today.

We came back to the camping ground and opted to have showers straight away rather than drive 4km return for them later. While David had success, having 20 seconds between pushing the button to obtain water, I ended up with a slightly quieter shower that had to have its button pushed every 5 seconds. I kid you not; I counted it several times. What’s more, the angle of the showerhead meant your nose had to be almost touching the shower wall to get the water onto your body. I tried keeping a thumb permanently pushing the button but was not able to contort my body enough to achieve this with my back turned to the showerhead. I ended up with sore thumbs on both hands!

Before returning to our site, we topped up with more water so I could do a little more washing passing by where the deer had grazed this morning. They were not about but later, when David went for a walk, looking for weird and wonderful vans to photograph for his ‘collection’, he spied the herd, still oblivious to the campers around them.

I must top this and cook tea. Its beef sausages and vegies tonight. It is amazing how much we have missed the humble sausage.

About 9pm, a doe wandered onto our site within 6m of our van and began to roughly prune a set of bushes by stripping the top leaves off every branch. David circled around in front of her to take some pictures of her with our van as a backdrop. Unperturbed, she kept munching until that set were stripped of top leaves. She then sauntered off passed our picnic table and fire grate just 2 m away and then found a small broken branch on the ground. Within 2 minutes it was stripped bare and she wandered behind the tent on the adjacent site varying her diet with some grass.

17th July, 2008 Jasper, Alberta, Canada

After one of our coldest nights so far, David slept in until the heater (furnace) kicked in for the third time. It was even too cold for the mozzies at 8.30am or perhaps it was that the humans were not yet up to suck on! Still, by 8.45am the campers were doing their Aussie salutes except that here you can’t just wave your hands on front of your face but have to whisk them around every exposed part of your body. Mozzies or flies? We think we prefer the flies.

Wilcox Creek was an interesting campsite on the hills above the Mistaya River. There were only pit toilets but they were new and clean with the antiseptic gel for your hands and they had an interesting addition we had not seen in national parks in the US. A mostly enclosed kitchen shelter or two were available for tenters. Here there was a wood stove with chimney although you had to pay $8.80 a day for the unlimited wood supply. There were picnic tables inside so that they could cook and eat their meals under shelter. Canadian and US parks generally provide a picnic table and fire ring at every campsite. This is an excellent idea provided you think burning fossil fuels for the fun of sitting around a campfire is OK. We never used our fire grate as we had gas in the van and it is easier to cook inside than bending over an open fire. Besides, it is environmentally better.

Setting off, we passed the Icefield Centre again and graders were up on the glacier grading the ice road ready for the day’s ATVs. It hardly seems an adventure under those circumstances. From the centre northward, we travelled through a traditional U shaped valley where the river meanders through beds of glacier rubble. Then you start to climb as the river is forced into a narrow canyon called Sunwapta Canyon. Here a wall of waterfalls below you plunging into the canyon and the views north and south are full of snow capped mountains higher than 3000m. To the south we farewelled Mt Athabasca and Mt Andromeda and to the north we gained new views of Mt Kitchener as well as The Twins and Mt Stutfield.

Before we reached Mt Stutfield and its gorgeous glacier, we came across Tangle Falls. Numerous short falls drop over a semi-circular shelf of rock and then combine until they drop over three definite little falls as if they have sorted out their tangle and suddenly regimented themselves.

Along the roadside, a huge sign was erected warning us to look out for caribou over the next 20km. Of course, there were no caribou. They could hardly miss reading a sign that large. Interestingly, no dogs are allowed on trails in the northern section, Jasper National Park, because of the caribou. They apparently react violently to dogs.

Our next stopping point after the Stutfield Glacier was at Mushroom and Diadem Peaks. Diadem on the south looks a little like a tiara with its arêtes and Mushroom Peak to the north is more like a volcanic plug. They are joined by a sweeping curve of rock below which an icefield, perhaps a retreated glacier, lies.

Up ahead, a wonderful sight caught my eye. A long line of rock arêtes forms the Endless Chain Ridge and that is exactly what it is. The arêtes drop in a continuous gracious curve to the valley floor. From a distance, they look smooth with vertical colour striations but further north, as we travelled beneath the ridge, we could see that it had a flat elongated saw tooth appearance. Each jutting out rock at the top tapered to nothing further down the ridge close to the treeline.

Our next stop was at more falls, the Sunwapta Falls. Here, hard rock is followed by limestone. So the narrow falls drop over a cliff, around an ancient moraine and then carve a deep canyon from the limestone as the river flows on to join the Athabasca River

From here you are in the great, wide Athabasca River valley. To the north west of the road we saw the pyramidal shaped Mt Christie topped with snow and the peaks of the Mt Fyatt massif. In the distance we caught our first glimpse of the impressive Mt Edith Cavell. On the other side of the road, to the northeast, Mt Kerkeslin can be seen, the last part of the Castle Mountain syncline that goes all the way to Banff.

Next, we came across people all standing beside the road photographing about 20 mountain goats. The herd included a number of kids, which really had the tourists excited and disobeying warnings to keep 30m from wild animals. For bears, the distance is 100m. We stayed on the opposite side of the road but it was frustrating as people kept walking into our photos. Still, we managed a couple of half decent shots before walking a few feet to see the glaciers. You see this spot is called Goats and Glaciers! Fortunately, they had not put up a sign to this effect or the goats would leave. The name appears only on the detailed maps of the route we picked up at an information centre.

Athabasca Falls were our last major stop of the day. Here the 100m wide river is forced into a very narrow channel by a hard quartzite rock layer before thundering down a smooth canyon into which the raging waters have carved very smooth potholes. Here rocks, swirled by the water have gradually increased the size and depth of the potholes. It was a great sight but sad too. A memorial bench sits beside the falls with a plaque dedicated to a 21 year old boy who loved the park but ventured once just too close on the slippery rocks. If the fall doesn’t kill you, hypothermia does before any rescue is possible.

From here on, the scenery is nice but, except for Mt Edith Cavell, it isn’t as impressive as further south. In fact, Jasper is a nice town, well laid-out and presented but lacks the mountains of Lake Louise and Banff or the view from Canada Place across the bridge and up the main street that serves Banff so well. Jasper is basically a tourist and railroad town. The railroad across Canada from west to east passes through here. So one side of the main street is taken up by parking areas and the railway.
Being less attractive than Banff doesn’t stop the shops here charging a lot. They want $4 a load for the washing machines and a minimum of $4 for a load in the drier. We had a few things to wash and I have started washing some each day by hand instead. However, we are so far behind in posting our blogs (no Internet access for weeks) that we shall have to pay for Internet access to keep the family at home posted.

We did have lunch, however, in a delightful, serene spot on the shores of a little lake just out of town. Lake Beauvert is one of several small lakes, fed by springs that flow into the Athabasca River here. Opposite our parking space, we had a picturesque view of Jasper Park Lodge with its green lawns, golf course and gardens flowing down to the glacier-pebbled lake embankment. (Smooth round river rocks are a common building material here in Jasper.) Behind was a range of mountains. When covered in snow earlier in the season it would have looked even more beautiful.

After some shopping for supplies and cashing a traveller’s cheque, we booked in early to our campsite. We have access to showers and power here. The boy at the entrance informed us it was a short walk to the showers from our site. Naturally, the map showed we were right at the other end of the campsite and we are 2km on a narrow, potholed road from the showers! It is such a big camping ground, about 3 km long. I tried to find a straight path to the showers down the centre of the park while David was working on the photos for the blogs. After 15 minutes, I was only half way and still I hadn’t found a path! It made me feel a bit like an explorer though. We drove to the showers. They are push button, just like at Lake Louise but cut out every 10 secs and mine screamed at me in a continuous assault on my eardrums. Then, when I went to dry my hair only one of the five powers points worked. Did you know that power points in North America have 2 flat and 1round hole but no switch! To turn off an appliance you have to remove the plug. Still our site is nice and level, we have no one crowded in on us, the train line isn’t near the campground and a bear walked through here last night.

16th July, 2009 Wilcox Creek, Icefield Parkway, Alberta, Canada

(Note: 16 blogs have been added today so check back to the 1st July.)

As a light sleeper I can cope with the nightly light rain falling on the van roof that we have had a Lake Louise but not the 6 trains each blasting their horns 3-4 times between 10pm and 5.30am. The van next door came in at about 6pm and left at 9pm! Perhaps the trains also explain why this camping ground has full signs up every night but many sites are never occupied. No wonder none of the tourist maps show the train tracks on them! Still, David was so impressed with the 6 dumping stations at the site this morning that he took a photograph! We have never seen more than 2 at the one park before.

Before leaving Lake Louise, we stocked up on some fresh fruit and milk and purchased a book on the Rockies and one on the train trip over it in readiness for our Rocky Mountaineer trip. Then we detoured via the old railway station, which is now a restaurant. It was built log cabin style but has large clear leadlight windows in the old waiting room area. They also uses some old carriages as a part of the restaurant.

Then it was off northward to the Icefield Parkway that goes form Lake Louise to Jasper. We hoped to get to Wilcox Creek, just south of the Columbian Icefield, in time to gain a site as you cannot pre-book here. This we managed.

All the way along the mountain backdrop is wonderful. The whole 230km to Jasper is World Heritage and so commercial vehicles and trains are prohibited! Hurrah! The snow-covered mountains to the west dominated the first half of the day with their lakes, glaciated peaks and glaciers. The highlights of the morning were Peyto Lake, Crowfoot Glacier and the view beyond Waterfowl Lake.

The Crowfoot Glacier once had three toes (the foot of the glacier is called its toe) but with global warming now has only two. All these glaciers arise in icefields and there are about 6 of these icefields to the west of the parkway although you are rarely high enough to see more than just the rim of the icefields.

Peyto Glacier and Lake develop from the Wapta Icefield and flow into the beautiful Mistaya Valley. To see this stunning vista, we parked our car in the crammed carpark and climbed a relatively steep paved path for 10 minutes until we came to the lookout about 30 m above the carpark level. The mozzies were a bigger problem than the steepness of the track although one over-weight woman we passed told her husband that after such a strenuous walk she was going to need a large lunch! In fact, the mozzies have been alarming all day and, as I type this, they are straining to enter our van through every flyscreen! Once at the lookout, the turquoise water of the Peyto Lake takes your breath away. The glacier to the left is gradually filling the lake with debris so that a huge delta area exists at the bottom of the glacier that a few shrubs are starting to vegetate. A couple of strip waterfalls fall into the valley below the glacier. Fortunately, the lake is not a small one and it flows into Mistaya River along which there are several other turquoise lakes to the north. It was just one of those views, like that from the Banff gondola station that has to be seen to be believed.

We were driving towards the lookout at Waterfowl Lake when we saw a couple of cars parked at a turnout and stopped to investigate. Two pyramidal peaks enticed us down the wet, muddy and narrow track to the water’s edge. We had found a gem, much better than the official lookout. Here the scene was serene with only the trickle of the stream and the wind in the pines making any noise. The highway with its motorbikes and RVs was a world away. The stream had cut a swath through the lakeside reeds providing a nice foreground for our pictures and an Asian woman stood transfixed by the peace and beauty on a rock near the edge. Her red parka provided a vivid flash of colour as we looked towards the two peaks, Mt Chephren and Mt Howse. To the left, looking south from where we had come, the mountains there provided yet another vista. This should have been the officially lookout and the path better developed but then we would have had to share it with the crowds that fly along this parkway.

Over half a million visitors a year drive this route and, unfortunately, most exceed the speed limit set to reduce road kill of wildlife and many stop at only the most obvious points along the route so that they can drive from Jasper to Lake Louise or vice versa in a few hours where we will take two days. One thing they miss as they speed by is all the wildflowers along the roadside. Today the road was hedged with a low row of Yellow Mountain Aven. We had seen this peculiar plant at the Takakkaw Falls. It has a small half opened daisy flower but when not quite open its flower forms a twisted cone that looks as if it will actually produce a flower twice the final size. Then there were lots of purple Northern Sweetvetch interspersed with the Aven especially around the Icefield Centre. That’s another to cross of my list of Canadian Rockies’ wildflowers.

After crossing the North Saskatchewan River which joins the Mistaya River, a little over a quarter of the way along this wonderful road, the right side of the road begins to gain one’s attention. The Castle Mountain Syncline runs from Castle Mountain near Banff to Mt Kerkeslin nearJasper. The mountains on the right are lower and drier so they are generally lacking in snow at this time of the year but this only reveals their amazing folding and uplifting that has shaped the rocks into all sorts of angles. The walls of these mountains can be almost vertical. The right side kept most of our attention for about 40km as we passed Mt Cirrus with its vertical terraced crown and the road swung around the big bend and up towards Sunwapta Pass. From a lookout here you can see wonderful views for around 250 degrees. To the left are the Bridal Veil Falls. They are not particularly wide but you can trace the water’s path as it cascades down the mountain before falling over the edge into the valley. Then in front of you is dramatic Mt Cirrus with its graceful scree slopes making a distinct contrast to its terraced crown until at its feet you find the road you have just travelled beside the aqua Mistaya River as it winds it way south form here to join the Alexander River. To the right of the river is a grey mountain with its shiny rocks running in vertical ripples and still further to the right is the Saskatchewan Glacier flowing from its snowy white top in the Columbian Icefield.

Leaving there, we had hoped to see the view from the Parker Ridge but it meant a steep hike up the ridge and we were anxious to secure our night’s campsite so we drove on. After finding a vacant site, we registered and placed out registration tag under an alligator clip on the post, which is the usual practise, and went off to the Icefield Centre just down the road.

It has been mentioned that Canada is most definitely not the USA. Here, you spell ‘centre’ the correct way! What’s more the restrooms of the US (Who wants to rest in a toilet?) have been replaced with washrooms, where you do not wash yourself, only your hands if they supply water. Furthermore, just as I was getting used to miles, we are back where the Canadians sensibly use metric measurements. And they have coloured money too and coin sizes seem more sensibly related to the value of the coinage. The Ped Xing signs of the US are “Cross Walks” here not Zebra crossings but both countries use the term “Texas Gate” for a cattle grid. How can it be a gate when there is no gate, only a gateway? Finally, Canadians have Mars bars! We didn’t see one in the USA despite all the junk food and snacks available. It’s funny, really. The Mars family are Americans, we thought, but the bars weren’t even there under another name. How deprived – no Tin Tams and no Mars bars.

Anyway, back to the Icefield Centre. Here you have a magnificent view of 4 large mountains and 4 glaciers including the famous Athabasca Glacier which in all my geography texts at high school and uni was the classic glacier shown. It is the centre piece, flowing from the Columbia Icefield, descending to a head wall, then a couple of deep ice steeps until it flows more smoothly down to its terminal moraine. Then there is a moraine lake containing its melt water dammed by a previous terminal moraine. Now a carpark it found between this moraine and the main road. On the eastern side of the road are two giant carparks and the centre separated by the terminal moraine left by the glacier in 1844. So it is easy to see just how far the glacier has receded. The glacier is still huge however. The people climbing onto its toe from the western side carpark are tiny to the eye. What’s more, you can get in a large all terrain vehicle (ATV) and travel for 90 minutes on the tongue of the glacier. At any one time there are three or four of these vehicles on the glacier and they too are dwarfed by the ice.

We had decided not to go on the ATVs before coming here but I was tempted at Banff to reconsider. However, seeing that all they appear to do is travel slowly up and down a well-worn road on the ice, it ceased to attract us. We had had a far more exciting experience at Mt Cook in NZ when we flew in a helicopter over Mt Cook and landed on the top of the Franz Joseph Glacier. There was no way this could compare so we save our $76 CAN. Instead, we had a hot chocolate in the van (It is very cold and windy there. This meant no mozzies.), and sat watching the view for an hour or so before coming back to our site at Wilcox Creek to cook dinner.

From our warm vantage point at the centre, we could see Mt Athabasca with its glaciers and smooth snowy top to the left, then, separated by another small glacier, was Mt Andromeda. At the foot of these two mountains was the high, fine lateral moraine of the Athabasca Glacier. On the right of this glacier was another high lateral moraine. Then there was Snow Dome. Naturally, it is topped with a deep layer of snow that stops abruptly at its front edge. Further to the right was the Dome Glacier and on its northern flank Mt Kitchener with its vertical cliffs topped with the abrupt vertical edge of the icefield. At the lower point of its 45-degree-sloped top, a smooth graceful fan of snow formed a scree slope in vivid contrast to the dark rock cliffs. No matter where you looked, your eyes had a feast of beauty and geography.

15th July, 2008 Lake Louise

We saw a bear! We saw a bear!

It was right beside the road, the main road running across the entire country as we headed this morning for Yoho National Park to the west. As the bear was within a few feet of our van, I was able to lean out the window and take pictures along with numerous other persons in cars, which lined up in front and behind us on the road fringe. We guess it was a black bear, not because it was black, because colour is actually not relevant, but because it seemed to lack the big hump on the back belonging to grizzlies. Everyone gets them confused as they can both be a whole range of colours from sandy to black. It ignored us all and kept munching, hardly even lifting its head to eye us off. Now all we need to see is a moose!

Poor moose get a ribbing here as there are frequent puns on its name, for example, brief mooseages (on a notepad), chocolate moose (a brown one), and I’m a moosey cook (on an apron). Bears get similar treatment: Blackbeary, the bear essentials, and I’m beary tired (on a nightshirt).

Yoho National Park is only a small park but with quite a reputation. It is reached by travelling through the Kicking Horse Pass. This pass got its name when an early expedition passed through here and the expedition’s doctor was kicked in the head by a horse and thought to be dead so he was almost buried alive. It is also the place where an adventurous railway project was completed. The company didn’t want an American railway building too close to Canada and so they built a railroad down a non-recommended steep slope. The train line cost one line worker his life for every week of construction and numerous side shoots had to be placed for runaway trains to run off on until Swiss engineers were able to tunnel into the mountain and create a spiralling track. This is still used today and we will travel on it when we catch the Rocky Mountaineer. Unfortunately, they were working on the track today so trains were not travelling on it when we went by but you could hardly see the track or the tunnels because of the growing trees. This was a great disappointment to David but fortunately we had bought a postcard of the spiral obviously taken years ago when the trees were small. Yet they had built a comprehensive information site at the overlook. What’s the point if they don’t maintain the lookout?

Yoho is Cree for “awe’ or “wow” and the Yoho River Valley packs a punch. It is long and wide and the road only gives you access to half its length. As you drive up, you pass the confluence of the Yoho and Kicking Horse Rivers. The Yoho River is white with all the glacial rock flour while the Kicking Horse is clear as it deposits its silt in lakes higher up its course but again it was a little hard to see the confluence between the trees. The road then commences it uphill grade and you have to go via 2 switchbacks (hairpin bends) that are not suitable for vehicles over seven metres. They are working on these switchback so that on our way back, we were held up for a while by a Canadian woman holding a silly lollipop STOP sign! It seems they are not much more advanced than the Americans in this area.

Eventually, you see the Takakkaw Falls. “Takakkaw’ is Cree for ‘magnificent’ and indeed these falls are just that. From a deep v shape carved by the glacial melt of the Daly Glacier, these falls tumble in two stages. First, there is a straight shorter section. Then, the water hits a hard section of rock and explodes out like water released form a hydro electric power station and it plummets down onto rocks and then forms a stream. The wind was carrying the spray over dark rocks making them glisten in the sun. There is a bridge from the parking area and a paved easy path to the base of the falls that was worth walking. Overall, the falls are the longest on the whole continent, falling 254m.

All around you there is something to see. The park has over 28 peaks higher than 3,000m. Looking back there are the wonderfully sculptured Cathedral Crags (3073m), the square-shaped Wapta Mountain and Mt Stephen (3199m). The latter has a glacier but not knowing its name, we named it Fifer Glacier in honour of our friend Rev. Stephen Fifer. To the right are the falls. To the left are The President Ranges. You can only see the Vice President peak from here but the higher President peak is behind it. In front of you, at the head of the valley, are further mountains and the Yoho Glacier, which, like the Daly and the Glacier des Poilus, flow from the huge Wapta Icefield. It isn’t too difficult a walk to the Yoho Glacier but it is long, about 7.7km one way. However, I felt the urge to walk to Laughing Falls, half way there, but we didn’t. We had plans for Emerald Lake in the afternoon and it was nearly lunchtime. I now wish we had walked to Laughing Falls as Emerald Lake was not as good as Moraine Lake and Lake Louise. When you have seen the best, inferior ones disappoint and we haven’t the time to see everything.

At the falls, I spied a new wildflower. It was only white but had 6 petals: 2 large and 4 small. The small ones were grouped in twos between the larger ones and below were 4 pointed green leaves.

Driving back onto Rte1, we drove to the town of Field where the park’s small information centre is located. Here there was supposed to be an excellent display of the Burgess Shale fossils. These were found in quarry high above Emerald Lake and are among the most famous fossils in the world. The site has been granted UNESCO World Heritage status as these fossils are the most amazing set of soft-bodied marine organism fossils ever discovered. Unfortunately, the lighting was so poor it was hard to distinguish the shape of the fossils. A better illustration with photographs on an information board besides Emerald Lake was much more informative. However, we did see stuffed wild animals there. There was a lynx which is just a large domestic sized cat but with hairy pointed ears. They are rarely seen but walkers such as ourselves. Then there was poor Jake. Jake was a black bear with a taste for human food and kept breaking into houses and vehicles despite being removed and relocated several times. Sadly, in the end, they destroy such animals.

Then it was off to Emerald Lake armed with info on short easy walks. However, we came across a natural rock bridge on our way from Field to the lake and this turned out to be a most interesting site geologically. Here a waterfall has been undermined creating a zig-zag bridge. Eventually, the rushing waters of Kicking Horse River will break through the bridge creating a chasm. The rocks around the bridge were also fascinating in their shapes and texture and the foaming waters after the bridge swirled logs around and around in a whirlpool eventually dumping many up on the rocks.

Emerald Lake was again short of parking but we managed to find a spot without illegally parking as so many did. Some double parked, others went up one-way sections against the arrows but there was no one there to enforce the signs. Why bother having designated bus only zones and special RV only parking areas if people just park where they like. Rangers here in Canada seem powerless or non-existent compared to those in the US. Police could make a fortune fining illegal parkers in Banff National Park.

Emerald Lake is indeed beautifully coloured, just like Moraine Lake and Lake Louise but it is bigger and the mountains surrounding it are not so spectacular. There’s a chalet / lodge there with 2 storey cabins and we walked through them determined to walk around this lake. The hanging baskets here were not as good as previously seen ones but there were some nice annuals planted in garden beds in need of more attention. However, the path was very uneven and back from the lake shore and the first few hundred yards after the cabins were through destroyed trees and most unattractive. So we retraced our steps upon being told that the other side of the lake was much better.

And it was much better. It was initially paved, and then level, offering more views to the lake as this side of the lake is drier and gravellier so that the vegetation is sparser than the heavily treed other side. However, wildflowers proved the only major source of interest here. I had bought a simple, short guide to Canadian Rocky Mountain wildflowers and here we found several we had not seen before, which was nice.

At the end of the lake (halfway around the 5.4km track), the path crosses the old delta inlet to the lake. Here you could see what will eventually happen to the delta of Lake Louise. The braided streams had become centred in more defined banks and vegetation and wildflowers now have populated the gravel and rock flour. Looking behind us, we saw a very beautiful sight I am sure our photos cannot convey. Storms had been threatening as we walked so that we had some rain and thunder but they had abated. Now, we could see the dark grey clouds amassed behind some mountains to the south. Sun shone on the snow while vivid white clouds hung above it causing the mountain top to look like it was glowing in the dark.

After retracing our steps, we calculated that we had walked over 7.5km today. Then it was back over the Kicking Horse Pass to Lake Louise Village to buy some petrol, drinks, bread and a treat. David tried the American favourite, the chocolate brownie. However, on the way there, we saw several trains lined up waiting to use the spiral tunnel that workmen had been working on today so we expect a lot more trains blasting us tonight as they clear the backlog. And it rained again, just when it was time for showers. We drove to the shower block! However, we were pleased with our day. We saw a bear in the wild!

14th July, 2008 Lake Louise

Last night it rained lightly most of the time, we had a short thunderstorm and six trains went through each tooting the requisite 3 times! I woke up tired! And today required an early start as we went to Lake Louise and waring signs at the start of the road say that parking is difficult between 10 am and 4 pm. We were there by 9 and yes, Lake Louise did live up to its reputation as the cloudy cool start gave way to patches of sun, turning the grey lake its famous blue/green soon after we arrived.

However, we had a little incident before we even got out of the carpark. They have parking attendants on duty ordering you where and how to park your vehicle. The lady informed us to go to the top car park and take care to avoid the bus that “doesn’t know where it is going”. At the top of the ramp was indeed such a bus. It had managed to turn around and passed us on the way down. Just! As we were alighting from the van a German woman came to ask in broken English for our help. The bus had swiped their vehicle and the driver was denying it. Did we see anything? Or was she urging us to say we had witnessed the accident! We had neither seen nor heard anything and fortunately, the driver arrived and we left them to it, the driver’s papers scattered over our bonnet.

Lake Louise’s famous chalet was a bit of a disappointment as it is quite modern and not in stone as I had imagined but concrete rendered and painted. It did however have some lovely hanging baskets of annuals (Yes, they are everywhere here and delightful.) On the other hand, from a distance, especially the other end of the lake, the Chateau Lake Louise is an imposing sight that really sets off the picture.

After taking the obligatory pictures of the lake form near the hotel, we walked first around to the left planning to go to Fairview Lookout but the track was too muddy after last night’s rain and we eventually turned back but not without a few nice shots. Then, we took the walk on the more open sunny side to past the end of the lake. This is an easy, paved walk so that by the time we had returned to the carpark we had covered about 6km. What a delightful walk it was and very popular too. Still, we only passed 1 dog! Hurray! We love dogs, but crowded narrow paths are not the place for them. Here the path was wide enough for 4 and few trees blocked the glorious view.

Chateau Lake Louise overlooks the lake, which is backed by several mountains. Naturally, the tallest one is in the middle and it is Mt Victoria. She would not be amused if it were otherwise. There are two glaciers on its flanks: the Upper and the Lower, although the Lower is largely covered by rocky moraine, and so does not look white. There are 6 glaciers that can be seen in this area but not all from the paths we took. At the end of the lake there is a delta area where braided streams run across the rock flour that eventually turns the lake its glorious colour. Rock flour is the very fine silt created when glaciers grind rocks to powder on their way down the mountains. It is milky-white silt and at one point you can see it swirling into the green lake water. Horse trail riders join the main track at its end and then venture down onto the delta. It makes for an interesting foreground for photos as the horses and their riders emphasise the size of the mountain backdrop. We walked a little further than the end of the track, up over a hill and then around the corner but without going a lot further, we could see not much more. Rock climbers were learning the ropes on a sheer, cracked cliff face at the end of the lake trail. Then we retraced our steps back to the chateau.

This is an expensive spot. Canoe hire is $50CAN an hour but the canoes certainly add a touch of colour on the aqua lake. There was a helicopter flying in and out of the tea house situated on top of a large hill, The Beehive, on the right of the lake but we never found out what was happening – a rescue, provisioning the tea house or something else. It would have been nice to go up to the teahouse but it is rather steep and we did not have the time.

Banff National Park is a very multicultural experience. There are people from all over the world here. Israelis rather stand out as they have their own particular fashions along with the Muslims. There are plenty of Asians, usually by the bus load, and French, German and Eastern European languages abound. We met a couple of groups of Australians on the walk. One young Wollongong woman was out for her sister’s wedding in Banff, not the one we saw, and was waiting below with her young children while the rest of the party went up to the teahouse which was owned by a friend’s family. Another family with older children were from Camden and in a few weeks had travelled from Niagara and Nova Scotia to here. They are obviously travellers as they have already taken their young teenage children to New Zealand, Europe and now Canada. It sounded all too rushed for us but they were staying at the Chateau, which might have been a nice treat.

At one time, we were actually considering dinner at the chateau but when we ended up walking about 10km in a day and need a shower, we didn’t have the energy to change and drive the 5km back to the lake.

The rest of our walking distance today was made up by a walk around Moraine Lake, which is separated from Lake Louise by the Paradise Valley. It’s a 12km drive in and, wouldn’t you know it, it was packed out with cars, buses and RVs. Still, a parking attendant found a car site for us and ushered us in. Had we been a bigger RV we would have been in trouble. This lake surpasses Lake Louise in colour, if that is possible. It is a stunning turquoise. The lake has been largely dammed by a large moraine pile at the carpark end and has ten peaks in an amphitheatre shape around it. Hence, it is in the Valley of the Ten Peaks. Originally, they were all numbered one to ten in an Indian language but now only 2 have retained these names. There are a couple of glaciers here. The first is the Fay Glacier, which ends high on the mountain in an abrupt wall of ice. Then there is another thin one that flows right down a narrow valley almost to the lake. At the end of the lake is a cascade where the melt water enters the lake. This is where you have to stop and retrace your steps but it is a very pleasant walk. Overall, it is a better walk than at Lake Louise since it weaves in and out of the thin pines giving you tantalising views and the ground has not been paved making it more of a bush walk than an organised excursion. Lots of little streams run over and under the pathway so that you are accompanied by the tinkling of streams rushing to join the lake. Furthermore, fewer people undertake this walk than at Lake Louise, which makes it more relaxed as you are not spending your time saying ‘g’day’ in varying forms as you pass by.

You can stay at a chalet here which has small but modern cabins. We searched for postcards at their store but ended up back at the mall in Lake Louise Village where they had a better selection of the day’s sights and a large stuffed, deceased, carked it, grizzly. A little boy at its feet proudly informed us that he had seen a real grizzly with two cubs from the gondola here today. We had decided not to do the gondola but to leave the great memories of the Banff gondola unclouded. We want to remember this area for its beautiful coloured lakes and Banff for its stunning panorama of mountains. Perhaps we will see a bear in the wild another day.

Dinner preparation was delayed while David waited to see the Rocky Mountaineer train pass by the campsite. We will be back this way on it in about 5 weeks. A Canadian Pacific Railway worker told David that after a train passed through recently, he looked up and there on the other side of the tracks was a grizzly bear! Bears apparently like train tracks.