We started on the Icefields
Parkway but took a detour past Mt Edith to see the Athabasca Falls. They form
part of the Athabasca River which links the fresh water from the Columbia
Icefield to the Arctic Ocean. From the falls the water goes through Lake
Athabasca, Great Slave Lake and the MacKenzie River before spilling off the
northern end of America 6,200 kms away near Inuvik.
We had just joined the Icefields
Parkway again, when we saw a mother and baby mountain goats on the side of the
road. We searched the riverside where we had seen a bear on Monday but we
couldn’t see one. Not to worry, the Stutfield Glacier came into sight and it
looked brilliant with the sun shining on it. The Athabasca Glacier seemed to be
waiting for the tourists to descend on it from the Columbia Icefield Centre.
The first busload for the day was just heading up to the changeover station on
the moraine as we passed at 10am.
We moved on to Banff National Park
from Jasper National Park but there was no toll booth. Once again we marvelled
at
·
The size of the mountains
·
The erosion patterns on the upper slopes
·
The neat spruce skirts around the mountains and
the wide flood plains below
·
The intertwining patterns of the mountain slopes
as we drove through the valley
We still hadn’t seen any bears but
that was probably because of the constant availability of “meals on wheels” as
many cyclists were riding on the side of the highway as part of summer
activities such as “ Backcountry Adventures”. Suddenly, we saw one which was
still on the prowl. It was walking across a turnout and Neil was quick enough
to do a u-turn and photograph him before he reached the bushes. We were only 10
metres from the bear but we sat quietly in the car unlike a stupid,
inconsiderate woman who drove towards the bear and called out to it trying to
get him to walk towards her. She was only about 2 metres from the bear. Imagine
if it had turned to show her how rude she was!!!! Another example of Canadian
Canned Food!!
During the past week, Neil has
commented from time to time about the lack of performance of our hired Toyota
Matrix but today he was very upset. We entered a passing section at the base of
a hill on the highway and a Fiat 500 zoomed past us. We had to go down to
manual second gear just to get up the hill and, even worse, the Fiat was
motoring away in to the distance. I tried to reassure Neil that at least we
were beating the cyclists but that didn’t help matters.
We wanted to call in to Lake
Louise again to see if the lake looked different with the midday sun on it but
the traffic jam and the overflow of cars wanting to park there was disastrous.
The 3 public car parks were full and other cars lined both sides of the road
for about a km. It was starting to make last Sunday’s traffic in Banff look
good. In the end the only option was to park on a slightly orange piece of
bitumen (I stayed in the car) while Neil ran to the lake took his photos and
ran back to the car (all done in about 5 mins).
Since we were in the traffic jam
mode, we headed off to Banff to see some of the sites we had wanted to see on
Sunday. On the main highway, there are fences on each side of the road and
special animal bridges which look like double arches and are covered in grass
and trees to allow the animals to cross the highway safely. In Banff we saw
·
The Bow River Falls which carry the water from
the Bow Glacier down the river and eventually through Banff National Park and
into Hudson Bay. Even in Summer the water temperature is only 10 degrees but
that is warm compared to the freezing temperatures in winter
·
The horse and carriage which ambles up and down
the main street with tourists
·
The famous Banff Springs Hotel which is a
heritage building but it still hosts hotel and conference guests. We saw a deer
on the footpath nearby
·
The Banff Gondola which has closed carriages
which take people up to great heights on the mountain.
·
The Cascade Gardens which is supervised by
Cascade Mountain which looks down upon the garden, has beautiful flowers, shady
sitting areas and walkways to take you around all the gardens on show.
We took the old highway to Calgary
and followed a beautiful River which eventually became the Ghost Reservoir
which was a beautiful water area for people to sail and canoe especially on hot
days like today. The blue of the water was an aqua colour and beside the green
of the grass in the neighbouring paddocks, it looked very inviting.
Unfortunately, we then hit the
outskirts of Calgary. We knew the name of the hotel but we had no address, no
phone number and no GPS. We made a few wrong turns but eventually we saw the
airport control tower and we headed that way. Then Neil remembered it was
somewhere near the golf course so we circled that and while we were sitting at
traffic lights trying to work out the next step, Neil saw the Port of Call sign
on a building and, after a sudden change of 2 lanes, we arrived at our
destination……..don’t ask me how???
Tomorrow we fly to Seattle
(International flight: Canada to USA) and the following day we start the long
flights home. We hope you have enjoyed our stories as much as we have enjoyed
being here.Hope to see you some time soon back home in Australia.
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