Advertisement
Published: September 18th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Sulphur Mountain
The view from Sulphur Mountain after conquering the hike to the top. Okay, so the blog has taken a back seat for a couple months while we were out trying to save the world one day at a time. The world is still here, so it’s safe to say - mission accomplished!
It’s been a crazy few months. Catherine took an unexpected holiday back to Melbourne for a couple of weeks to help out with some family errands, so Lok saw fit to do manly things like white water rafting in Fernie. Fernie is possibly the friendliest town in the Canadian Rockies. It’s a slow paced town, at least in the summer months anyway, surrounded by the Canadian Rockies, with the Elk River running through it. The Raging Elk Hostel is a great place to lay your head and having a 4 person dorm to yourself for the whole time certainly doesn’t detract from the experience.
It was on the 19 hour Greyhound trip from Vancouver to Fernie that I heard about the psycho that stabbed a man to death and then decapitated him while he slept on a Greyhound bus. That can make falling asleep on the bus a little difficult. Why is that guy walking towards me? Oh, he’s
The Gondola Ride Down Sulphur Mountain
A lot easier than hiking and they didn't charge us - woo! just going to the toilet. Is that guy pulling a knife out of his bag? No, it’s just a chocolate bar? Why is that guy stroking my hair while I sleep? Nothing to worry about. He’s just weird and creepy.
After a few days surrounded by mountains in Fernie, I jumped on another Greyhound bus bound for Calgary, Alberta, but this time it was a much shorter trip, so sleeping was less of a priority. Alberta is famous for its oil, its beef, and the fact that Calgary hosted the Winter Olympics in 1988. Calgary is sometimes referred to by the locals as Cowtown. It makes the ‘City of Churches’ tag that Adelaide has to endure look pretty good in comparison.
With Catherine’s arrival in Calgary and both of us back in the same place again, we got in contact with the Cirque Du Soleil guys and within a couple of days we were back at our second home under the Grand Chapiteau.
Arriving in Calgary in summer fills us with anticipation about what this city will be like in winter. We’ve checked out the Devonian gardens, which is a large heated indoor garden above a shopping
Ahhh, Summer in the Rockies
Catherine standing under the info booth in the car park of the Columbia Icefields Visitors' Centre as the snow falls. centre in Downtown Calgary. We spent a good half hour watching turtles scramble on top of each other to get to the best position under the heat lamps. Calgary also has the +15 system which is a series of enclosed walkways, 15 feet above-ground (hence the name), that link all the major office buildings and shopping areas in the Downtown area. You can walk from one part of the city to the other without going outside. So bring on those - 40° Celsius days.
Burnt out from too many performances of Corteo (there’s only so many times you can you can answer that eternal question - where are the washrooms?) we took a few days off and made our way to Banff for a little holiday. Banff is nestled at the foot of the Canadian Rockies and seems to be the playground of tourists and wealthy Calgarians. Here’s a quick snapshot of our trip to Banff:
- Checking into the Driftwood Inn.
- Hiking the 5.5km track up Sulphur Mountain, with a seemingly endless number of switchbacks; checking out the Cosmic Ray Station at the top of Sulphur Mountain; and catching the Sulphur Mountain Gondola back down.
-
On the Athabasca Glacier
Standing in front of the Brewster's bus that drives you onto the glacier at a top speed of about 15kmph. Welcoming in Catherine’s 30th by having breakfast at the grand and historic Fairmont Banff Springs.
- Hiring a car and driving out to the Columbia Ice Fields; taking a tour on the specially equipped Brewster’s bus out onto the Athabasca Glacier and walking on it; and stopping off in Lake Louise on the way home.
- Seeing our first wild bear and getting told off by a Park Ranger for stopping and getting out of our car to take a photo. Park Rangers - more like fun police. Those Rangers are omnipresent. They just appear out of nowhere.
- Our first experience eating Elk. It’s one of the few meats that doesn’t taste like chicken.
Now we’re back in Calgary, Cirque has moved on to Ottawa and we’re contemplating what comes next. Real jobs? Casual work? More travel? Stay tuned for the next instalment.
Canada is also about to go to the polls (14 October 2004), not that you’d be interested because most of Canada certainly isn’t. It’s probably in part because Canadians are suffering election fatigue after elections in both 2004 and 2006, and let’s face it, all things political are much more interesting south of the
border. When you hear that a vice-presidential candidate thinks that the best way to sell the Alaskan executive jet is to put on eBay, you know that comedy gold is just around the corner.
On a topic completely unrelated to travel, Wes Carr has sung his way through to the final 12 of Australian Idol 2008 (final 11 now), so check out some of his original music at www.myspace.com/wesleycarr and text in your votes to get him through to the final.
Wes Carr - Catherine and Lok’s 2008 Australian Idol
Advertisement
Tot: 0.082s; Tpl: 0.02s; cc: 9; qc: 46; dbt: 0.0406s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 3;
; mem: 1.1mb
Oliver
non-member comment
Happy Birthday Catherine! one more year til I turn 30 ;-)