The weather was cold during the night so we afforded ourselves a sleep in to try and defrost. Once up and on our way we had three different bear sightings. All of them seemed to be aware that cars had stopped and were watching them, but were quite content to just stroll along munching on the foliage. We saw many different lakes on our roadtrip, but the most spectacular was undoubtedly Peyto Lake. The glacier-fed lake was a surreal turquoise, even more so when the sun came out. You’ll be able to see from the photos just how breathtaking it is. [View Full Entry]

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We woke to the sounds of rain and trains, which incidentally are amazingly long here, they have hundreds of carriages. They are impressive to look at, but when you want a relaxing sleep in they don’t impress me much. I’m not sure whether Dad had too much cheese before bed, or whether he’d been listening to too many campfire stories about bears, but when we got out of our tent he told us that in the night bears had been circling our campsite. He still sticks by his story to this very day, but none of us heard or saw anything [View Full Entry]

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I’m not sure who was more excited for our roadtrip, Nic and I who had seen pictures of the beautiful Icefield Parkway and had been looking forward to seeing it in person, or Mum and Dad who hadn’t been camping in tents in 20 odd years. Either way, we were all psyched and once we’d packed our gears into our rental car we set off. Our first port of call was Banff, we found the campsite and set ourselves up. Once done we headed into town to check out the river, Banff hotel and then onto the shops. Nic headed straight [View Full Entry]

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The Calgary Stampede Parade has always been on my bucket list. I lie, it hasn’t but we thought we’d get up and go check it out anyway. After finding a park in town we made our way towards the strip where it would be taking place. There were a few places giving out free breakfasts, but due to the smell of horse shit emanating from the parade I gave it a miss. The parade was pretty impressive, and obviously something the locals take pride in. This was typified by a large rotund man sitting in front of us who at every [View Full Entry]

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Soon after Nicola’s Mum had left to head back to England, my parents arrived from NZ. After their lenghty flight they were justifiably a little jet lagged so were napping when we got a phone call from Scott’s friend Chad. He informed us that there were moose, which are seen rarely, just down the road from our house. So I woke Mum and Dad and we sped down to see them. There were two and they were quite happy chilling in the grass on the outskirts of town. They are a strange looking creature with what I would describe as a [View Full Entry]

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I gave the Last Chance Saloon its own entry because it is so friggin awesome. Anyway after we’d finished there we went and saw a few of the other attractions in Drumheller. The first of which was the Red Deer River Valley Badlands. The Badlands landscape is moon-like in appearance with gullies and twisting and winding canyons that have been intricately eroded. It was named the “badlands” as it was arid and thought to be unsuitable for farming. Although it was later found out to be rich with coal and fossils. I should probably know how the area was formed seeing [View Full Entry]

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After our campervan trip, Scott had to head back to work. The oil rig he works on is off the coast of India and he works 28 days on and then has 28 days off. Going back to work must suck but I can only imagine the excitement he experiences on his last day before 28 days off, I’m excited enough on a Friday afternoon. Nic and Tina’s mum Jenn still had a week or so in Canada so we made a few trips. The first was back towards Banff to do a few walks. The second was to Drumheller. Drumheller [View Full Entry]

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Banff is a bustling little mountain town that has a good atmosphere. It has remained at a smallish size by introducing a law many years ago not allowing any more houses to be constructed, if you want a new house you must buy one that already exists and bowl it down, even then if you build a new one it must conform to the local style. I think to buy a house you must also work in Banff. So the style of houses remains relatively similar and there is a close knit community. That is until all the flaming Australians turn [View Full Entry]

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An early morning dash by Scott behind the wheels of the Campervan saw us make the early ferry across Upper Arrow Lake. It was a scenic crossing, we stood looking out ... at one with nature. Ah ha ha, cheeeeeeese. To stretch the legs we got out at the Glacier National Park museum near Mount Revelstoke. It was quite interesting, they had stuffed animals, so I saw what a Wolverine looks like. I bet it would surprise you if you saw one. They are quite small viscous looking things. If anyone has seen a movie with a bear in it, I [View Full Entry]

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A leisurely start to the day was followed by a pub lunch where we watched Germany beat Portugal in the football. Random side point: I forgot to mention about my shower that morning. As I went into a cubicle, the sign said Loonie required. I thought, surely you don’t have to be a bit mentally unstable to have a shower. I quickly found out that a loonie means a dollar, and that a toonie is two dollars. Ok back to the day’s festivities. We grabbed some supplies from a grocery store and made our way to Lake Nakusp. We were stoked [View Full Entry]

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