Back home

We made it back.
The last day was a bit of an anticlimax. There had been a thunderstorm during the night and it rained all day so we couldn't get out and do a tour of Han's and Kathleen's estate.
We got to the airport without too much difficulty thanks to the excellent instructions from Kathleen, Car drop off was very slick, all done using a wireless handhelp device that printed out the final bill there and then.
We walked into Calgary airport. According to the signs we could have either check-in with Canada Airlines or with a USA airline. We had to ask and then walk a long way to find the 'other' airlines desks tucked away.
We dropped off our bags and and went through security to discover the Duty-free shop was closed. We actually saw the plane we would be flying in arrive while we were in the departure lounge.
We had booked the back pair of seats again. In front of us were three young children, 10ish, 3ish and 18 monthish. The two youngest were crying and screaming. The mother, on her own, was trying her hardest to quieten them down. Luckily by the time we were in the air they were all settled down. Didn't manage to sleep but did watch "Be kind, rewind" which was very funny.
We landed a few minutes ahead of schedule. We were home by half past three.

Well the holiday was over.

But what a holiday. So many memories, so many experiences and so many photos - I have 8,234 of them to check through and discard or catalogue.
Our greatest luck was having a special friend like Kathleen who from the time we told her we were planning the trip has provided us with information, advice and piles of books and pamphlets. We would have missed out on a great deal without her help.
So the last entry of this blog is a special thank you to Kathleen and Hans for their help and making us so welcome in their beautiful home.

Last day

I had started to wonder if we would get to the last day. It seems so long ago we caught the taxi to Heathrow.
Today we again set out without Kathleen and drove round an area name Kananaskis Country which contains the Spray Lake and Peter Loughheed Provincial Parks. It is south of Banff and was forecast to have good weather.
Kathleen's still on dial-up which makes the connection very slow. When I was on dial-up most web sites were designed to be viewed on a slow connection. Kathleen has to contend with web sites designed for broadband. It also means that while on line telephone calls cannot be received. Unfortunately while checking my return flight details the guy who was to repair her fridge called and couldn't get through so he didn't come. I feel so guilty and annoyed. The good news is that Alberta has promised that everyone will have access to broadband by early next year.
When we got back from the trip Kathleen told us that the had been a moose and her young one outside the front of her house. The mother was there for the salt lick.
Tomorrow we are staying around the house and I hope to get some shots of the moose.
We fly out at 21:50 and are expecting to land on Friday at 13:15. If all goes well we should be home by 17:00.

A quick update

Kathleen has been wonderful today chauffeuring us around the Banff and Yoho National Parks.
We did a great deal of travelling, walking and climbing and it is too late to type it all up now.
More tomorrow...

and a few steps more

Today we were off with Kathleen to Drumheller which is to the east of where we are staying. This is the prairie country, a land of few bumps and long straight roads.
Our first stop was Horseshoe Canyon, Canada's answer to the Grand Canyon. It may be smaller but is just as dramatic. The land was originally the sea bed and over millions of years deposits of mud, animal bones and vegetation built up in layers. The sea bed was pushed up at the sand time as the Rocky Mountains and during the last ice age the canyon was formed. The sides of the canyon show the layers as differently coloured rocks and mud.
One of the layers, that formed from the vegetation, was coal and the region was heavily mined. One mine that still exists as a heritage site is the Star Mine. To get to the mine it is necessary to cross the Red Deer river which is wide and very muddy using the 117 metre suspension bridge.
Our third stop was the Hoodoos Recreation Area. Hoodoos are stumps of rock, looking a bit like mushrooms. They are formed when a cap of hard sandstone protects the softer underlying rock from eroding as rapidly as the surrounding rock. Unfortunately these beautiful edifices are being destroyed by thoughtless people climbing all over them.
Our final stop was the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology located just outside Drumheller. It is considered the finest dinosaur museum in the world. The museum is named after Joseph Burr Tyrrell who in 1884 discovers the first dinosaur remains near Drumheller. The find, a skull, was of an undiscovered dinosaur and was given the name Albertosaurus. Many of the exhibits are of fossils found in Alberta. In addition to the extinct exhibits on glass wall opens onto a workshop where you can see technicians working of cleaning and preserving recently received fossils.
We managed to get off on our way home before a major thunderstorm broke over the area.
Only two more full days here before we have to return home.

A step into history

The weather was not looking good for photos at Moraine Lake so we decided to give Kathleen a day off from ferrying us around.
Instead we took a trip out to Heritage Park just south of Calgary. In the park are authentic and reproduction buildings dating from nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There were houses, shops, a hotel, a blacksmith, school and hospital to name but a few. All were from the Calgary area and each had a history.
It took us all day to get round the park and even then there were things we were not able to do, such as a ride on the steam train, or the horse drawn wagon or the paddle steamer.
Many of the exibits had guides dressed in period costume who were able to answer most questions about the building and the people who lived or worked in them.
The park closed at 5pm and we had eaten only an couple of hours earlier so we missed out eating in Calgary and drove back to Cochrane.
The sky was looking rather stormy as we approached Cochrane so we stopped off at a Boston Pizza and had a drink and read our book before having a meal. By the time we were finished it was raining and we had to dash for the car. It got rather heavy at one point but by the time we were about 3km from the house we were through the worst and the sun was causing the roads to steam.
We await tomorrows weather forecast to see what we will be doing.

Touring round Banff National Park

Was woken early as the weather looked good for trip to Moraine lake - apparently it is best in the morning in the sunshine.
On the journey we spotted a pelican, two cormorants and an osprey.
Just as we got to Banff Kathleen, our friend and guide, realised that the clouds were too thick in the direction of the lake so we took off towards the sunny area.
We did a lot of walking into various valleys and up pathways to view waterfalls. At one point we arrived at a car park where a sign showed us we were on the border between British Columbia and Alberta. So we had our picture taken sitting back to back with Rita in one state and me in the other. Well you have to don't you.
In Banff we went to see the Bow Falls. It was the deepest Kathleen had ever seen the river. Nearby is a golf course and as well as the usual hazards like bunkers and water features this course is known to have elks and bears. We were lucky to find to female elks wandering across the course.
We arrived back at the house a couple of woodpeckers were having a go at the side of the building. On was having a go at the window frame. All we could see was its head as it looked around into the room.

The Stampede Parade

During last evening we had thunder and lightening nearby but the rain passed us by. The morning started overcast.
We were on our way to Calgary by 6:15. After breakfast in Calgary we found our seats, bleachers on 9th street. We were in row 4 so were quite high up and would be level with the heads of the horse riders. The parade started at 9am but it took some 20 minutes for the front of the parade to reach us.
I took a lot of pictures. I used up two 8GB SD cards (500 images per card) and started on a third. I had to change batteries halfway through.
I have never seen so many horses, or horse riders.
Luckily for those in the parade and those watching the weather was bright and overcast for most of the parade. I was told that last year people were fainting because of the heat. The sun only made an appearance in the last 20 minutes of the parade.
I now have a big task in sifting through all the images to find the best.

Stampeding to Calgary

Today we left our cabin and set off along the Trans-Canada Highway from Jasper to Banff.
On the way we stopped off at the Icefields Parkway by the Athabasca Glacier. We bought tickets and we taken, first by bus, and then by a heavy duty truck up part of the glacier. We were able to spend 20 minutes walking around on the ice before we returned to base.
Our journey was constantly interrupted as we saw wildlife or glorious views and had to stop to get a picture. We did see a bear and cub but they were hidden by dense undergrowth and I couldn't get a good picture.
The journey finish when we arrived at our friend's house in Cochane, just outside Calgary.
We will be up early tomorrow to ensure good seats at the opening parade of the Stampede.

Splashing out

Today is our last full day in Jasper National Park. The sky wasn’t as overcast as yesterday and we could see some blue sky as we drove to Jasper. We met up with our guide and driver for the rafting. There were six of us in the bus as we drove off. Our guide, Ron, went through the introductions. There was one Canadian pair, one Australian couple and us two English.
As we left Jasper we were held up by a road closed after an avalanche. When we arrived at the river we unloaded the raft and were issued with our wetsuits and life jackets. Ron demonstrated how to get into the raft and secure yourself. He also told us what to do if we fell overboard.
The river looked wide and fast flowing as we carried the raft to the bank. I was at the front of the raft for the first part of the trip. Off we set. The trip was a 5 miles long and ranked as class 2 so not too difficult.
Ron told us that following the hot weather the river was running higher and faster than normal. He estimated that the river was running at 10 kept. The journey time would be 50 minutes, whereas a couple of weeks earlier it would have taken 75 minutes. During the journey the cloud cover reduced and we were in sunshine for most of the trip.
Off we set. Ron explained that he would ask us to row to that we would move faster than the water so that he could steer the raft. Our first set of rapids were not too big but it did leave our feet rather wet. We didn’t paddle all the time and during the rests Ron told the history of the area and pointed out the flora, fauna and geology we were passing.
The next two sets of rapids were hard and at times the raft shop upwards leaving me with no water to put the paddle in. Waves splashed over us.
Eddie, the driver, had taken the bus further up the river and as we rounded the bend he was there taking a few shots of us struggling against the waves.
Just after this the two of us at the front exchanged places with those in the second seats.
Ron then announced we were about to arrive at the last chance to be swept overboard, and up ahead we saw the tell tale white horses. We paddled like made so that Ron could steer us into the middle of the rapids. We were lifted up and throw down over and over again. Screams of laughter and excitement could be heard.
There was one last rough patch as we went under the bridge and we were told to paddle like made to Ron could steer to the landing area. We failed to make the first inlet and had to settle for the second one. The raft following us up failed even that and ended up about 30 metres further down river.
By the time we had got changed and been driven back to the pick up point the pictures had been burned onto a CD ready for us to take away. We drove back to the cabin had a snack and relaxed. I put the wet underclothes on the back on the car to dry in the sunlight.
After our rest I suggested a trip out along the highway eastwards towards Hinton. So off we set. After about 10 kilometres we passed the entrance gate. The scenery was slowly getting flatter and no t looking too interesting so we turned round. We saw a sign for Wild Horse Lake, 5 km, so we turned off, straight onto a dirt track, a very rocky dirt track. We gave up after 2 km and turned round as the dust was getting too much.
We joined the queue waiting go through the Park Entrance. When we got to the front we were asked how long we are staying and then discovered there is a $20 per day charge for staying in the park. Thanks to the ambulance a couple of days we had saved $40 plus tax.
I wanted to take some photos of the mountains so we droved passed Pocahontas and back towards Jasper. We stopped to take photos of some mountain goats that were climbing on the rocks at the side of the road. As I walked back to the car I noticed that my shirt was hanging from the rear windscreen wipers and suddenly realised that I hadn’t taken the clothes off the back of the car. God knows where they were. Rita made sure she reminded me that I was as bad as my Dad, who had driven off with a cake still on the car roof some 40 years earlier.
We are now back in the cabin packing for our journey to Cochrane tomorrow. We will be stopping off on the Ice Fields on the way.

What's Maligne?

Today is Canada Day. A national holiday so the roads would be busy.
We had read that the Maligne River and Maligne Lake were worth a visit and being only 40 miles away it would be a good day out. The morning had started slightly over cast with occasional burst of sunlight.
There was a small problem. I did something to my right ankle the night before just before bed and it really hurt. It was still painful in the morning and I was hobbling.
We decided to miss out breakfast so we could get away early. At the start of the road going to the lake there were warnings about the wildlife that we may encounter. We hadn’t gone too far when we saw break lights going on future up the road. There was a caribou eating the dandelions on the roadside. We got out and took a few photos.
Our first main stop was Medicine Lake. This is an unusual lake. During the spring the melting snow fills the lake and then as summer starts the lake level drops until it is nearly empty. The problem was that there was no visible outlet. It was only discovered recently that the water drains through dozens of sinkholes in the lake bed. I managed to hobble around and take a few photos.
We drove to Maligne Lake without seeing anymore wildlife. Not long after parking we bumped into an English couple who showed us a photo of a small black bear walking across the road that we had driven down less than 5 minutes earlier. Damn!
The scenery around the lake is beautiful. Unfortunately the sun was still behind complete cloud cover so everything looked washed out. While having some sandwiches we were entertained by a chipmunk that was running around the picnic area and under people’s feet, picking up bits of dropped food.
We booked a tour of the lake. The lake tour was enjoyable but we saw no wildlife except for two mountain sheep a long way away on the mountain side.
Not long after leaving the lake Rita suddenly shouted “It’s a bear, stop, stop!” I pulled over but I was unable to see the bear. Rita grabbed the camera and walked back about 50 feet and took a few photos. I got out and hobbled along. Just I got to her I saw the bear. It was black and looked small, but then it was about 50 yards away. By this time other cars had arrived and stopped. The bear did not seem to notice us but carried on eating. I got a few good photos are the bear appeared between the bushes. A few miles on we came across a family of goats.
We drove into Jasper. We wanted to get some supplies for breakfast. We also, rashly, booked seats on a white-water raft trip. OK it’s not the really serious raft trip. We are not that stupid. We found a very good restaurant, Fiddle River, where I had a Bison rib-eye steak and Rita had Muskox. The Bison steak was like a normal steak but much leaner and with a slight gamey flavour. The Muskox was like beef but sweeter.