You wanna Kananaskis my what?

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Hands up if you know who Chris Cornell is? For all of you with your hands down he's the lead singer of the bands Soundgarden and Audioslave two of the biggest rock bands in the 90s and 00s. He also has a solo career with his biggest hit "You Know My Name" being a James Bond opening theme. I'm not just telling you this for shits and giggles, we went and saw him playing at Calgary University. Nic, Tina, Chad and I rocked up early had a feed and a few drinks before watching support act "Mobile". They are a Canadian band with a few songs that have made it big on the charts. I reckon they sound a little like U2 so expect big things.

Chris Cornell was brilliant. He performed with a backing band and sung songs from his entire repertoire. My highlights were the Audioslave song "Original Fire" and he performed Soundgarden's "Spoonman" as an acoustic solo. His new stuff got a mixed reception; he has since released an album which has moved away from his tried and true rock, I'm not sure if it will be as successful.

On weekends we would usually do one of two things, either head out of the city towards Banff and go for walks, or we would float down the local elbow river on inflatable boats. Some of the nicer walks we did were at Kananaskis where we went with my mate Rick who had arrived in Alberta after a mammoth trip across Asia and Russia. We almost didn't make it back from this walk as Tina dropped her car keys into a 5 metre or higher rock pile, thankfully they didn't fall all the way through.

Another good walk was in Bragg creek with Tina's friend Andrew and his girlfriend Kristin. We took their dog; I forget his name but remember his face which was so ugly it was cute. I also remember the huge ice creams and delicious pies found in the nearby town.

Speaking of pies, we visited a farmers market one Sunday and wrangled our way into tasting about 10 different flavours each. We were full to bust after that but bought a massive box for the coming weeks (or days in our case). The markets are famous for the local Hutterites selling their wares. They are essentially Canada's version of the Amish.

Right, now about the rafting. This was my favourite way of spending a day in Calgary. It required a bit of preparation. We would take 2 cars. Park one at the finishing point and then all pile into one car and drive to the starting point. We'd bust out all the inflatable boats and pump them up, grab life jackets (mandatory on the Calgary rivers) and take an eskie/chilly bin/cooler bag (depending on your country) full of beers and float down in the sun sipping beers and talking to floaters by. We'd tie the boats together so people didn't get washed ahead. Then 2 to 3 hours later we'd jump out, deflate the rafts and pick up both the cars. Good times. Except for the time there was a thunder storm and an errant branch knocked my sunglasses in. Actually that was still fun. I'm going to try and get this activity started in Christchurch when I get home, possibly as a means of transport home from work.

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