fitness? what fitness?

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Banff

So Banff isn't a very big town, but lovely and pituresque all the same. It's hard to get over how beautiful the clear green of the water is - Bow River, which flows past our hotel and through the middle of town. The hanging baskets are everywhere, beautiful, lush flowers that my dad keeps peering under to figure out how they're made. Our tour leader Rika keeps dropping hints about how she wants one of those hanging baskets, but if only Australian customs weren't so tight maybe we could bag one for ourselves.

We went on a walk to Vermillion Lakes in the afternoon. Despite the name, they're not vermillion in colour and actually we only saw one of them anyway. It would have been a nice walk - the stream was so clear! - but the hordes of mosquitos buzzing around kind-of wrecked the tranquility a little.

But mosquitos aside, Banff is lovely. We're staying just outside the main town in an ex-castle which was created for a General of the Canadian Railway, now converted into a beautiful hotel for the rich and richer. These five-star hotels are all very well, but it's funny the way that the more you pay for a place to sleep, the less freebies you get. Perhaps paying premium price for even the most mundane of things make the rich feel richer?

But nevermind, onwards -

Lake Louise

The second most photographed place in Canada, right after Niagra Falls on the Canada-US border. Lake Louise is a beautiful green lake, surrounded by mountains and backed by a huge receding glacier. We lucked out with the weather today - the downpour we have experienced all day stopped just in time for us to take in the views of the lake and go on a very informative tour by one of the Swiss guides in their funny, brightly coloured, stripey costumes. The Swiss guides were once responsible for leading enterprising young Canadians up the surrounding mountains - supposedly chosen because of their expertise in the mountain climbing arena, but surely just because it's impossible to lose a Swiss guide in the snow in their gaudy, bright orange, red, and yellow costumes. I'm not really sure who was responsible for designing the Swiss outfits, but whoever it was better have a good explanation / excuse for it.

After we dropped our bags off at the Chateau Lake Louise, we started on a pleasant walk around Lake Louise. Regretfully, a sign caught my eye a few hundred metres from the start of our walk - another pathway to a lake beguilingly named "Mirror Lake". Hoping the lake would be like the one in a photograph we have at home with snow-capped mountains reflected in an intense blue lake, we decided to ignore the second most photographed site in Canada, and head towards a completely unknown entity which had so much going for it, that no-one anywhere has ever heard of it before.

And wow, am I glad I made that decision (I wish the internet would register sarcasm better..) A gruelling two hour up-hill, no relenting hike up the side of a mountain, without even any pleasant views to sweeten the deal. Mum cleverly gave up a quarter of the way up the mountain and decided to wait for us at the bottom - a move I'm still kicking myself for not taking myself. As it turns out, the reason no-one ever talks about Mirror Lake is because the 'lake' is nothing but a dirty little puddle up the side of a mountain. Dying as we reached the top, we were then faced with the happy thought of another hours descent in what was now fairly drizzly weather back to the base of the beautiful Lake Louise which we had stupidly ignored to come to this muddy hole.

In the evening, as reward for our uphill trek, we decided to keep in theme with our Swiss hotel and went to a fondue restaraunt for dinner. The meat and broth was good, but we probably stuffed ourselves with the cheese fondue first. Not that it stopped us digging into the chocolate fondue dessert. Come on now, melted chocolate and strawberries? I'm not ashamed to admit it takes a stronger person than me to resist.

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