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Published: August 21st 2011
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We arrived in Canada to lovely warm weather and a surprisingly very quiet airport, especially compared to LAX. After collecting our hire car we drove along the scenic roads up to Banff in the mountains where we were staying. Our log cabin was really nice and the owners were lovely, giving us all the information we needed. We headed out for some food before finally getting some well needed sleep before being up early the next day!
On Sunday we went white water rafting which I found horrifically scary!!! We were well prepared and were geared up in a wetsuit, fleeces, water shoes, a life jacket and a rain coat. However this didn't at all put me at east. The first section of the rapids we went on was named the 'gentle ride', which Mum and I found scary enough. When that half was over, the two groups that were just here for the gentle part left the rapids, and we had a choice whether to carry on or not. Stupidly enough I decided I had to carry on so did so. I don't think I have ever been so scared in my life!!!! We were given instructions on what
to do when our leader shouted out things such as: 'LEFT!!' or 'IN THE BOAT IN THE BOAT!' which were quite easy to remember. We were also told that if we fell out the boat, we were to lie on our backs unless we were heading towards rocks or logs, and then we had to turn on our tummies and swim as fast as we could away from them... brilliant. He knew how scared me and Mum were so he thought it'd be funny to shout 'IN THE BOAT! FRONT TWO - ELEANOR AND SOPHIE! HEADS DOWN!' as we were approaching some huge rapids. This obviously SOAKED us and made the entire boat laugh at the fact he was only joking and we hadn't needed to get down at all. The boys all loved this but I'm not too sure I could quite handle doing it again! We had a lovely BBQ lunch at the end of it though. We also bought our pictures where me and Mum are pulling some lovely faces - on one of them you can't even see Mum as she fell over at the back of the boat. Haha! Afterwards we went for a drive
and looked at a few lakes Dad had researched for us. One of them was called Emerald Lake - the lakes in Alberta are beautiful because minerals that wash down from the mountains make them an extreme bright blue colour.
The next day we went for a guided walk over a glacier. We got up early so we could drive down the Bow Valley Park Way which is famous for the amount of animals that live in the surrounding forests. I can certainly say it lived up to that!! During our 3 days in Canada we managed to see 7 black bears, 2 grizzly bears, elk, deer, pikas and squirrels. Although not all of them were in Bow Valley Park Way, a lot of them were. The glacier walk was really interesting, they provide the water for the waterfalls and rivers throughout the mountains. It took us around 2 hours to climb up and around half an hour back down. Afterwards we went for a scenic drive around Alberta and to see some famous waterfalls and lakes. We even went on a bear hunt but after scaring ourselves too much and forgetting our bear spray (pepper spray), we decided
half an hour was long enough! We climbed up a huge pile of rocks to get a good view over one of the lakes, but to get to the rock pile we had to climb over logs floating in the water. Well this wasn't a very good idea, as I was the first to fall in with my whole left leg and trainer going in the water, closely followed by George who, unfortunately, fell in the water completely. The view was worth it though. We then went to a hot springs near Banff which was amazing!! Naturally heated water from the mountain is formed into a pool for everyone to enjoy, it was 39 degrees! Because my feet had been so cold, they actually burned when I first got in the pool... a bit like a hot bath. After a long day we headed back and had our tea in the scenic town of Banff - it's like a typical ski town with wooden lodges and pretty lights everywhere!
On our final day of our world tour, we headed off early again in an attempt to catch a glimpse of some more animals. Thankfully we did and saw even
more bears along the road!! We went to meet Mum's cousin Julie and her daughter Holly at Lake Louise. Mum hadn't seen Julie since she was a little girl, and we had never met them so it was a lovely day out. We went on a gondola ride up the mountains (like a cable car/ski lift). The mountains were famous for grizzly bears and YES we saw 2!! One on our way up to the top of the mountain, and one whilst we were having our breakfast afterwards. Lake Louise was again a bright, bright blue. We went on a canoe ride around the lake which was good fun and the views were amazing. We did more shopping at Lake Louise in the gift shops, before saying bye to Julie and Holly and heading off to Calgary airport for our plane back to England after the holiday of a life time...
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