Ingita on Tour in Westcanada, Southalaska, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand - 2. Part: Canadian Rockies (Banff) and Okanagan Valley

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...to be updated with fotos soon ;-)...



When I left Calgary on Sunday 14th of September, I had already spent some nice days and met nice people – but it did not really feel like I had arrived in Canada. That changed once we (another hostel guest joined me in my rental car) left Calgary behind us on our way to the Canadian Rockies and the Banff Nationalpark. Some kilometers outside Calary there are still the borders of the prairies – quite flat land with limited vegetation, but nice to look at... especially when you do not have to see them for 2-3 days in a row (when you cross Canada it seems to get very boring in the praries ;-)) – and in the distance the rockies already appeared. A beautiful drive – overall less than 2 hours (Unfortunately I did not take pictures while driving ;-)) – the closer we got to the rockies the greener it got. The weather was sunny and when arriving in the Samesun hostel in Banff before check-in time, I relaxed on their patio – no jacket or sweater needed – what a change to the 0 degrees on my first two days in Calgary :-)

In the afternoon I went for a walk & picknick around the town of Banff – a small town with quite a touristic feel, but still nice. When I reached a trail along the banks of the bow river I had a short moment (no human beiing was in sight) of „bear fear“ ;-o …this fear came back from time to time during the coming days… but I can say that it is or at least felt „save enough“ even to walk alone on most of the very touristic trails and in addition I was told by several Canadians that bears REEEAAAALLLY run away when they see humans…. On less „touristic“ trails they show signs that you are not allowed to hike with less than 4 people due to higher amount of wildlife (BEAAAARS!!!) – so people travelling alone can wait at the beginning of the trail to form a group with others (as I am a „flatland“ hiker and a typical tourist these trails were anyway not on my list ;-))

Hikes during my next two days were to a canyon (Johnston Canyon) with waterfalls (lower and upper falls), to very beautiful lakes with amazing colours surounded by high peaks (some have more than 3000m) – namely Lake Louise and Lake Moraine, a lake close to Banff (Vermillion Lake) were I relaxed quite some time on a dock with my Kindle and watched a painter painting a distant mountain – very relaxing and finally I went up on the Tunnel Mountain (my first and only Canadian Rockies summit – at 1690m….ok, I know that is not tooo high…especially when Banff is at approx 1400m… but I already mentioned me being a flatland hiker - so it was enough uphill hiking for that stay ;-) – and even though it is not soo high, the views on Banff and the surrounding woods and mountains are worth the hike) On all of the trails there were always a lot of other tourists (you might not see them in the pictures ;-) but it was not as quiet and deserted as it might look).

Note: we saw WILDLIFE at Lake Louise ;-) a mountain goat…but in the veeeery far distance and I had to zoom into my foto to really be sure that it was an animal and not just a white rock!

I really liked the Banff Nationalpark in summer/autumn, but I decided (after hearing how much snow and how low temperatures they have in winter… like minus 30 or worse) that I do not want to come back to this area after christmas to look for a winterjob… nooooo… noooooo… Especially as you might know that skiing is also not my favorite hobby. Noooo….I will wait until spring before returning to Canada ;-) I can already picture myself on the Ocean around Halifax, Nova Scotia…ach ja… but back to Banff!

Sometimes the drive is really part of the vacation – this was definitely the case in Banff Nationalpark and also when we (in the meantime 3 people ;-)) left the Canadian Rockies to drive to the Okanagan Valley (route: Banff – Golden – Revelstoke – Kelowna – Penticton). The vegetation and countrysite is changing so much on this route and the views are sometimes breathtaking – high cliffs and mountains, nice rivers and creeks, a lot of trees (but they look different along the route) and then, the closer we got to Okanagan Valley, the mountains get a lot smaller, the countryside drier and lakes appear in the valley. Around the Okanagan Lake there are a loooot of whineries and they are also growing fruits like peaches, apples, nectarines etc etc. I guess that is not what you would usually expect to find in Canada?!

The final destination on the 17th of September was the HI Hostel in Penticton. The hostel is already a bit older, but the staff is nice and I had the luxury (as the summer season always ends after the 1st September weekend) to have a room for myself for the first two of three nights! Veeeery nice :-)

The next day it was raining in the morning, so I started slowly with some supermarket shopping - always an experience… and I already miss the cheese options we have at home. So for christmas I want to eat a cheese plate followed by a cheese fondue and by a cheese cake ;-) Lateron I drove along the shore to Naramata – very pitoresque through vineyards and fruit fields. To do „research“, I bought a bottle of white wine (Gewurztraminer) (for 20 CAD (14 EUR) outsch… but you don’t get local wine much cheaper here) which I finished in the next 2 evenings ;-) result: definitely drinkable, but my none-expert wine taste has tasted better wines (for less money) in Europe. But it is nevertheless cool to drink a CANADIAN wine and their history in wine-making is still quite young (I was told that they only started good 20 years ago; before that is was mainly apple fields in the area), so the wines will probably improve in the future!

The next day we drove a bit over an hour to Myra Canyon, which is situated in the mountains around 900m up high over Kelowna. The interesting place to visit there (beside the views on the area) is a part of the KVR (Kettle Valley Railway) trail showing various wooden and steel trestle bridges – a special kind of bridges used mainly for railways in US and Canada. This railway is not used anymore since the 70’s and the tracks have been removed – but the bridges are still there. Or actually they have been rebuilt with an increadible amount of voluntary work after a big wood fire in 2003 had destroyed many of them (you can still see the burned tree trunks and some of the black burned parts of the old bridges).

Also on this trip the drive up the mountain and back around the Okanagan Lake was sooo nice – I think I need to come back to this area next autumn :-) It actually reminded me a little bit of the Lake Leman area… just less green, well, and there are no alpes, but still ;-)

On Saturday 20th of September (again a nice warm and sunny day) there was a Farmer’s market in Penticton – I guess it takes place every week – were they sold local products and good looking veggies… but as I knew I wouldn’t be able to eat it before my cruise, I could not buy more than a few tomatoes and some homemade granola bars. In different corners of the market there were also performing artists/musicians which gave the event a special flair. I especially liked one area where some skilled (?at least I guess) people with drums etc did play music together with people like you and me (they distributed tambourines and other „simple“ instruments ;-)) – it was so great watching the people enjoying themselves!

The market ended at 1 p.m. – so this was our time to leave Penticton behind us and head for Hyway number 3 (via Princeton and Hope) on our way to Vancouver. About this hyway… IT IS BEAUTIFUL! I am so happy the staff in HI Penticton convinced me to take that road! When you search on Google for a route from Penticton to Vancouver, it gives you two suggestions (highway 97a/5 or a route via US…yeah well, I was of course very keen to do immigration to US on my way to Vancouver) – none of them being highway 3. Maybe this is the reason why we did not have to deal with a lot of traffic :-) The route was so nice, through fruit fields and soft hills, some almost desert-like looking places and of course also some mountains and woods – again a mix of very different countrysides, with some of them not being the ones you would expect in Canada, but more in the Midwest US...

…to be continued… I need to leave you know ;-) my cruise check-in starts in 10 minutes and I am still in the hostel...

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