How loose is your moose?

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We've come to the end of our vancouver visit and while we're ready to move on we'll both be sad to leave, while we've been here we've seen some amazing scenery and met some really great people.
We spent a week up in the rockies with a canadian tour company called moose, at first we were a bit dubious about whether it would be worth the extra pennies over the greyhound bus but it was definately worth it. The bus could hold 20 but there was only 16 of us so it was nice and spacy, our bus driver was also our guide and he really made the trip, he's canadian and has lived around the area his whole life so he knew all the little places to stop and i think we stopped at every single waterfall on route to banff! There were two germans, three irish girls, three japanese girls, four australians, us, another english guy from bristol and an annoying girl from bedfordshire! The trip started in vancouver and we drove up to Schuswap Lake, stopping at hope, kamloops and plenty of scenic points along the way, as soon as we got there we all grabbed our swimming stuff and jumped in the lake before dinner. The hostel we stayed at had a bbq dinner on so we all ate there and then stayed for the live music and hilarious dance routines provided by the locals! When we got back to our room someone had left the door open and the resident cat was sleeping on Stephan's (our german bus mate) bed, everyone but stephan thought this was very cute! The next morning we were all up at the crack of dawn (this was to be the running theme of the trip!) and the first stop of the day was the go-kart track, the go-karts were bumper karts and looked pretty homemade, I was up for going although paul wasn't so keen but in the end i couldn't drive one as I didn't have any closed-toe shoes with me 😞 it looked great fun though and quite a few of our bus mates got knocked right off the track! From there we headed on a long drive to Banff, having lunch at a visitors centre with a small museum about the local wildlife. On route we stopped at Emerald lake and to the amusement of other tourists we all jumped in for a swim. One of the bus highlights was the consequences of being late! anyone not making back to the bus at the specified time violated the moose rule and to get back on the bus had to run round the bus two or three times (depending on how late they were!) singing "how loose is your moose? my moose is totally loose!", the english girl sarah was late so many times we had begun to call it the 'sarah rule' by the end of the trip. We got into Banff fairly late and ate at the hostel's restaurant where I had perogies (a Canadian dish a bit like potato dumplings) and paul had shepherd's pie. It was karaoke night at the hostel, paul was feeling tired so he headed to bed while i went down to the bar with the group.
With another early start under our belts we headed to Lake Louise which was stunning apart from the hotel they had decided to build on the shore which looked a bit out of place. We didn't swim in this one, but drove a bit further to Bow lake which was also very nice and had a swim there instead. The main stop of the day was at the Columbia icefields where we could walk up to the Athabasca glacier. The scenary was amazing and despite the multiple warning signs people were still climbing up onto the glacier for their photo opportunities.
The last stop was in the Jasper township, but we didn't stay for very long before heading slightly south to a wilderness hostel beside the athabasca river (fed by the athabasca glacier). The hostel had electricity but no running water so we had to get our own water from an outdoor pump. We made a group meal that night with people being assigned to teams, the pasta team, the sauce team, the garlic bread team (me!) and the clean up team - which everyone desperatly tried to avoid! - and then sat around the campfire telling jokes and then spending twice as long trying to explain them to Stephan and Rhea (the two germans). The next morning we were up at 7am to go for a quick 'swim' before breakfast, although nobody was really swimming it was more like a dunk! we couldn't go in the river as it was too fast moving and went round the corner and over a waterfall - which we went to see later in the day - but there was a pool coming off of the river that we could go in. we all lined up and dunked in one at a time, as its glacier water it was absolutely freezing, while its not an experience i'll repeat in a hurry it did wake us up after our late night round the fire.
The weather got pretty rubbish then but even so we persevered and climbed part way up a mountain to parkers ridge where we could see the Saskatchewan glacier. By this time everyone was soaking wet and getting a bit miserable so we all climbed back down and ate our picnic lunch on the bus. We stopped at peyto lake after food but it was still raining so while paul went out with the camera i decided to stay dry. By the time we got to moraine lake though it had dried up and the sun had even decided to show its face, our driver took us to an uncoventional viewing spot reached by walking across a bunch of logs floating in the water and climbing up a pile of rocks - all of which i accomplished in flip flops! - it was worth it as we got a much better view of the lake. Moraine lake is similar to lake louise but it felt less touristy and benefited by not having the massive hotel in the middle of the view.
We got to back to banff a bit earlier than we did before and we decided to make use of the hostels bbq, so we bought some food with some of the other bus people and had steaks and sausages for dinner, followed by barbequed banana and chocolate, yum yum! it was our last night with this bus as we had booked an extra night in banff so we all went for drinks in one of the local bars and two of the guys ended up inadvertantly challanging some locals to table football or 'foozball'! the locals were taking it pretty seriously and didn't take well to being beaten!
The next day we had a slight lie-in then made pancakes with Hannah, one of the australian girls who jumped off in banff too, before heading up to the hot springs, the springs rented out 'historic' bathing suits and hannah and i decided that we would get some for a luch, although actually they were quite flattering but at about $100 I decided not to buy one. We used our extra day in Banff to wander round the town and see Bow falls - Banff was lovely but really small so I'm glad we only stayed one extra night. The next day we were back on the bus, but a different one which wasn't quite as good.
We stopped at johnston canyon, takkakaw falls and a wolf sanctuary, which was pretty cool, everyone in the group had to howl to get the wolves started and when they did they went on for ages, one of the wolves seemed a bit asthmatic though and kept coughing mid-howl!
That evening we went kayaking which was really good fun, paul enjoyed it but i don't think he'd be too quick to jump back in one as his seemed a bit wobbly! We stayed at the glacier house resort which was pretty nice - we were in a log cabin with just the other bus people so it was nice and quiet and we got a good nights sleep for a change!
The next day we headed to Kelowna stopping at a random dairy farm and flea market, but also at a winery which was really nice. The guy took us on a bit of a tour and then we tasted some different wines then some ice wine which is a canadian thing where they wait til winter when the grapes freeze and then make the wine and because the water in the grape is frozen the sugar is more concentrated and the wine is very very sweet, its really nice but you couldn't drink much of it and considering how expensive it is you probably couldn't afford to drink much!
The hostel that night was pretty grotty and we were looking forward to getting back to aunty betty and uncle dave's for some home comforts. Some of the group wanted to sky-dive so we were hanging about for that but in the end the weather was too bad so we just headed back to vancouver stopping at some old railway tunnels on the way.
Overall we had a great time, we learnt some japanese and now have tour guides in tokyo and melbourne, and hopefully will have some irish visitors next summer!
Since we've been back we have been chilling out a lot, we had a bit of an explore round burnaby where we're staying, we hit the beach at kits and climbed grouse mountain. Jordan and heather got here on wednesday so we've been spending some time with them and today we're going to go to capilano and lynn canyon to cross the suspension bridges! Tomorrow is our last day and we have plenty of washing and packing to keep us occupied, we're catching the bus to seattle on tuesday morning then its down to san francisco the LA before catching a flight to auckland. The time is flying by for us, already its been almost two months but it feels more like two weeks!

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