Advertisement
Published: October 11th 2012
Edit Blog Post
CN Tower
Shelly looking worried on the glass floor! Finally, after writing our first entry only to have the P.C. freeze on us we've got our blog started!!! We started out 11 days ago with a managable 7hour 20 min flight into Toronto and a couple of hours on trains and buses to get to our Super 8 Hotel in Chinatown, downtown Toronto. Needless to say we ate Chinese the first night but ordered way too much and took half of it away in cartons to eat!! Next day we rose early, had breakfast and set off to explore Toronto. First stop the CN Tower. The weather was great, about 16 degrees and clear blue skies, so the views from 347 metres up the tower were amazing. The glass floor and glass bottomed lift was a little scary but exciting! (I persuaded Shelly onto the floor for a photo after a minute or two). After the tower we caught a ferry across to Hanlon Point on one of the 3 interconnected islands. We walked between all three, Hanlon, Centre and Ward's Islands and encountered loads of black Squirrels and even more mozzies! The next day did a little more exploring and bought our train tickets for Niagara Falls the following
day. Early to rise again to catch the 8.20 train for a 2 hour journey to Niagara. Again we were blessed with a lovely clear day which showed all the Autumn colours of the trees in all their glory. On first sight of the falls my first thought was 'is that it' but this was the American Falls, the Canadian Horseshoe Falls were much more impressive. We decided to take a closer, wetter look at the Falls with a ride on the Maid Of The Mist which took us right to the foot of the falls! The noise and feel of the water was imense! We had a walk around Niagara town, (a bit like a glorified Blackpool with amusements, haunted houses and fast food joints everwhere) for a bite to eat and a beer before heading back to the station and the train back to toronto. We found Toronto to be a really nice, clean, spacious city with a relaxed feel and plenty of friendly people.
We flew to Vancouver on Friday 5th October, and after a 4hr20min flight and 40 min on the skytrain we found our Downtown hotel, again right next to Chinatown. We Ate and
got an early night ready for picking the campervan up on Saturday. We were up at 6 and by 12 noon we had signed all the paperwork, familiarised ourselves with the van and hit the road!!! I was a bit stressed getting out of a busy Vancouver on the wrong side of the road but chilled out and started to enjoy once we got onto the open road. The van is a very impessive, brand new Mercedes Sprinter 3.0 diesel with all mod cons including Ipod hook up which i was rather pleased about! After the disappointment of not being able to do the Ferry journey of the 'Inside Passage' from Vancouver Island to Prince Rupert we decided to travel North East out towards the Rockies. First stop was a small town called Hope where the first Rambo movie was filmed. Being a big fan i instantly recognised some of the features in the town, although the bridge he first walked across at the start of the film had just been demolished. We headed out to the Othello Tunnels, a 4km trail through tunnels and over bridges cut straight through a canyon back during the Gold Rush and also another
filming location of Rambo.
We got back on the road and headed for our first campground in Manning Provincial Park which we totally missing and ended up carrying on to Princeton and a little private R.V. site right along side a river. $17. We were up at first light after a very comfy, if not slightly cold nights sleep in our queensize bed. We headed further North east into the colombia mountains where the scenery turned evermore dramatic and the temperature steadily colder. We drove up to Kamloops and then east to Chase. We had i little walk around Shuswap Lake then carried on to try and find somewhere to Dry Camp, as the canadians call it. Its harder than i thought to find a nice spot off the road with no people but more importantly no camping fees!!! we passed through Scotch Creek and Celista and gave in and found a campsite called Chimney Rock, Thrty bloody dollars, but at least it had lovely warm showers, although the water had a rather eggy smell, the sulphur smell of volcanic spring water, i think i smelled worse after the shower! We took a few beers to the side of
Buying a chicken dog!
chicken dog with everything is the way forward. mmm the lake and soaked up the last of the sun before heading back and cooking a bolgnese/risoto type thing, very yummy.
Next day we headed up to Mount Revelstoke National Park and stopped to take in a few 2-3km trails, including some 800 year old cedars. The scenery gets ever more spectacular as we get closer to the Rockies, snow topped peaks, lakes and forrest everywhere. Golden and Bald Eagles and our first sign of bear activity all be it a big pile of poo, but definately Bear Poo!!! We finally camped for free, just outside Golden next to 'Cedar Lake' with only one other camper there. Up at first light after a very cold night and freezing temperatures although the lake was stunning in first light with the mist over it and like a mirror. We set off at 8ish for the Rockies, Banff, Lake Louise and Glacier National Park! We did our first big trail covering about 15km up above and around Lake Louise seeing our first Glaciers at 'The Plain of the Six Glaciers' and some of the most stunning scenery! Plenty of wildlife too, Chipmunks, Pikas, Mountain Goats. Slept like a log that night as
the 3000 metre air certainly takes its toll!
We set off for Jasper at 9ish and North onto the stunning Icefields Parkway. We stopped and walked 6km onto a ridge across from the Saskatchewan Glacier, the biggest in the rockies at 9km, a magnificent sight but with a howling wind and temperatures of -2 we didn't hang around for long. We arrived in Jasper and found a campsite then headed into town for provisions (beer) and some Bear Spray (pepper spray) as an encounter seems to be getting ever more likely and its a little unnerving just the two of us on a trail miles from anywhere. I will feel a little more reasurred on our next trek. So here i am sat in Jasper Library at midday, its about -3 outside and were going to head out to Lake Maligne and do a 6-7km trek and hopefully see our first bear, as we read in the log at the visitors centre that quite a few Grizzly and Black bears have been sighted in the last few days. The area is also full of Elk, usually a huge male with a Harem of 10-12 females. Very impressive and not
at all affraid of people!!! Time to go walking, To be Continued..........
Advertisement
Tot: 0.122s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 10; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0791s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Trevor
non-member comment
Brilliant
Hi Shelly and Ben it sounds like your having a fantastic time, reading your blog has brought back some fantastic memories of my own from some of the places you have visited. Hope you are taking plenty of photos and you get to see a bear or two though hopefully not to closely, have you heard a wolf calling yet, that will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Look forward to reading your next installment to your blog, take care both of you and have fun x