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Published: June 10th 2007
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Left Seattle after visiting the Museum of Flight which was pretty cool. I has the original Boeing factory there where William Boeing use to churn out his wooden aircraft at the very beginning. They also have one of the Concordes and the fastest aircraft ever built, the Blackbird.
Met the next set of fellow sardines at the hotel on Wed morning for the beginning of the trip. This time an older group with a stack of nations represented - Australia, New Zealand, England, Ireland, Austria, US and Canadian. Again there was a fellow traveller from Brisbane.
We headed north west towards the Yoho district followed by Banff and Jasper over the next couple of days. The stops included the usual collection of emerald lakes and snow capped mountains. Went for a Canoe paddle on one of the lakes and took a helicopter ride through part of the Rocky ranges. Got to see the odd bear wandering along the road and wild sheep, elk and moose in the woods. Lake Louise was definitely one of the highlights with its beautiful blue/green lake surrounded by steep mountains. We trekked for about 4 hours that day to go up to the
tea house.
On Saturday we went white water rafting on the Kicking Horse River. We have since renamed it the Kicking Arse River as it just about killed some of us. They had a lot of rain lately and so they actually wouldn't take us on the day that we were booked as the river was too high. Apparently it was safe enough on the next day though. We all got suited up in wetsuits, spray jackets and hard hats. Mine was a little loose fitting but I wasn't expecting to go swimming as the water was around 4 degrees - fresh off the snow capped mountains. Anyway we travelled down the river for about 10 minutes and did a few of the drills before heading down a stretch that had three level 4 rapids. On the first one the front left of the boat, where I was sitting, lifted high up in the air. The guide lunged forward to try to stop it flipping but with no luck. Thus all 7 of us were dumped in the icy water with the boat floating upside down. I was gasping for air floating down the river ahead of the boat
and was pounded by waves over my head and bounced along the submerged rocks. I swallowed a fair bit of water and some went down my lungs. Lucky for me along came the rescue kayak and he got me to hold onto the front and took me close to the rear of the now righted raft. I swam to the boat and there was a bit of a line up of people to get pulled back in. A couple of the guys got back in before the guide yelled out "get down". Sure enough we hit another huge rapid which flipped the boat again. It also punctured the front left pocket so the boat was out of action for the rest of the trip. I was again separated from the boat drifting down more level 4 rapids unable to move my limbs much due to the cold water. Again the kayak came along and dragged me over near the shore were I stumbled up the bank and lay there shivering and coughing up water. A few minutes later one of the other guides appeared out of the bush to take me on their raft to get around to the meeting
point. Fortunately their boat didn't flip and once at the meeting point I curled up on the ground dry reaching. I just needed a bit of time to recover but they gave me oxygen to help. So that was the end of the rafting for the day for our group, except for the young Austrian who was crazy enough to continue the first run and do the second. The final injuries for me were a bruised and swollen knee, swollen thumb and bruises on my shin, leg, elbow and forearm. One of the girls was actually trapped under the raft on the initial flip but managed to get out. One of the guys hit his head on a rock but was ok. I appeared to suffer the worse but I wasn't the only one thinking that I wasn't going to get out of that river alive. Unfortunately there are no photos as they gave us the wrong disc! Hopefully we will be able to get the correct one sent to us. The photo here gives some indication though.
That night we went to the hot pools in Banff and hired 1930's style swimmers which looked pretty funny - unfortunately
no photos. We also did another 4 hour hike up a canyon to see a nice valley and some pools formed from springs.
On the way to Jasper we did a trek up a Glacier. Not as scenic as the one in NZ as it was largely flat but nice enough once the sleet and snow cleared.
In Jasper I had a free day to get over some of my injuries whilst the others hired push bikes to check out the surrounds. We stayed about 5 kms out of town on the river and the elk wander right past our cabins in the evening which is pretty neat. We also took the cable car up to Whistlers for some sight seeing - not to be confused with the ski resort of a similar name.
Then we headed back to down south with some horse riding in the hills on the way. They were pretty calm and after the rafting I was wondering whether something could go wrong there also. It wasn't a good start in that they didn't give us any helmets and being one of the tallest, I got one of the tallest horses but she
was pretty stubborn and hard to get into a trot. There was one disturbance where the horses had a bit of a disagreement but none of us fell off. We stayed the night at a ski resort near Kamloops. It was really nice accommodation but we didn't get a chance to appeciate the golf course or much else. It was really just a stop over on the way to Vancouver. Arrived in Vancouver on Thu afternoon and had lunch in the huge park then free time in the afternoon. I went over to Granville island which is a bit of a tourist trap but it was nice. They have some markets and some buskers on the harbour. Met some nice locals. Caught the ferry back to the city area and wandered back up through one of the their cafe areas. They are getting ready for the winter olympics and so there is a fair bit of construction going on at the moment.
So that's just about it for my trip. Definately much nicer staying at the hotels rather than camping and I am sure I put back any weight I lost doing the camping as we dined out every
night. Looking forward to getting back to sunny Brisbane. See you all soon.
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Robyn
non-member comment
Silly Dave!
He he silly Dave, you could of asked me about the Kicking Ass river....... glad to hear you survived it! Some don't! See ya when you get back. Robyn :)