Vancouver to Banff

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The road trip

We returned from Vancouver Island tired, but determined to get going on the road. Although Erica was keen to see all the sights, she also had to say good bye to her boyfriend, Simmo. They won't be seeing each other for 10 weeks and this trip was the first time they'd spent more than a day apart. We picked up our new rental car, a beasty ford - which we've affectionately called jerky - after our recent discovery and addiction to beef jerky, which also happens to be the colour of the car!

While Erica and Simmo said their goodbyes, James and I chowed into some last minute Vancouver pizza, in preparation for the hours of driving ahead. Once on the road, we escaped the city quite quickly and made good time to Kelowna, our first stop. The company Erica worked for, Samesun, owns hostels in Van, Kelowna and Banff so we planned to utilise their full facilities. After four hours of driving, we came into Kelowna for the night. Once we'd settled in, we set about walking around the town to check out the sights. Kelowna was established on Lake Okinagan - just another of Canada's large lakes. It has a great beach and apparently in summer, it's just as busy as any coastal beach. But given this time of year, we found no one else there except for ourselves. We wandered the streets for an hour, but with nothing too exciting happening, we ended back at the hostel for an end to a quiet night.

Arrival in Banff

The following day we made a quick exit from Kelowna for the trip to Banff. We calculated it would take another 4 hours. It is on this day when the scenery truly kicked in. Everyone speaks about the beauty of the Canadan Rockies, and of course the images never seem to do it justice. Our trip was no exception. We cruised through the last of rural British Columbia and as the km's clicked over, the scenery started changing. We were truly sure of our arrival into the Rockies as we past a place called the 'enchanted forest'. The highway curved through a mass of pine trees and then on one side we had a massive water fall and on the other side we had a roaring river, straight out of a post card! The adjectives to describe this place don't compete with the real thing, but I have to say: it's beautiful, expansive, colourful, full of life, and just too god damn good looking! The drive may have been long but it was well worth it.

Getting to Banff, we stopped at two small towns along the way: Revelstoke and Golden. Revelstoke is described in the Lonely Planet as being a kind of 'David Lynch' town, very eerie and this was definitely true. If it wasn't for the multitude of trains going through, the place would be pretty quiet ... literally! In Golden, James was keen to stop and check out information about the local ski resort of Kicking Horse. We didn't have time to head up on the gondola, but a very friendly local told us about 'Bou' the local grizzly bear, who now resided just under the gondola and we made plans to come back to check it out. Once out of Golden, the scenery just got better and better. The trans-canadian highway cuts through some pretty impressive mountains, and the train line which criss-crosses with the road looks like it would have been nearly impossible to lay to foundations, and yet it has been done. JUst before getting into Banff, we made the obligatory stop ay Lake Louise. It was about 6pm by now and the light was starting to go down, but we managed to have some pretty cool photos taken and the opportunity to speak with a loca who told us of an alternative route to Banff .... aha!!

Lake Louise is visually spectacular, but unfortunately, it's dimished by the presence of the large, imposing hotel on its shores. The manicured gardens and landscaping really left us feeling like it was all a little fake ... even the lake! Unfortunately, we didn't have a chance to get onto any of the hiking trails, and I think this may have changed our minds a little. It's pretty hard to take a bad photo though!

So, after getting some shots of this great lake, we hopped back into the car and headed for our alternative route to Banff - hoping to see some wild life. Although we didn't see any little critters, we did get some good photos of the mountains, as we'd now climbed some 3500m above sea level. It was at this point, we saw the permanent snow and glaciers that top the highest mountains in the ranges.

We arrived in Banff on Friday night, about 8pm and booked into the Samesun hostel. The hostel is based in an old lodge, so the rooms have their own bathrooms (sweet!) and we were lucky enough to have a loft as well. We met our new room mates (couple from Calgary and two guys from Melbourne) and got stuck into the alcohol pretty quickly and became acquainted with the local bar/club scene equally as quick! We've planned to stay in Banff for three nights, to chill out and soak in all the serenity of the mountains. We hope to head back to Golden to check out Kicking Horse and to also see Lake Moraine, a sister lake to Lake Louise (without the imposing hotel). More updates to follow .....

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Photos

Road trip!
Erica fell in love with the back seat of our car ... I believe there's drool covering a majority of surfaces ... I'm too scared to look!

Another elk
These things are pretty big!

Tacky mountain shot
Had to be done ...

Erica and I - Lake Louise
Just chillin and soaking our feet in the water (cold!!!)

Erica and James - Lake Louise
Picture perfect!