days 15 and 16

---

Day 15

Well, finally I have been pulled out for secondary inspection at an airport. They even checked my jandals for bombs! A bit of a wait at the airport as my flight is 3 hours later than the others so here I am looking the real yuppie and playing computers at the airport. In the big parade of things broken so far, I have killed my big suitcase (the wheels fell off) my purple jandals, my watch battery went flat (Hans fitted a new one) I now have black ones. And most recently the card in my camera disintegrated meaning I had to buy a new one at airport prices but the blog must go on.

I arrived safely in Alberta and was met by Dale and Diana and we headed off to Canmore which is just before Banff. I keep taking mountain photo’s but Dale says naw, you aint seen nothing yet! It is still warm weather, I am beginning to wonder if this snow stuff is real at all. We are off further into the rockies today and I have been advised to wear shoes so we will see.

Day 16

Our first stop out of Canmore was the world famous resort of Banff. CPR, (Canadian Pacific Railway), built all these really upmarket hotels in the 1800s, this was one of their signature properties and was part of the base that formed the Canadian National Park system. It is a truly magnificent stone building in the European tradition. The thermal springs discovered in this area really put Banff on the map and are home to a little snail that is on the endangered list, the smallest thing on the list. The next stop was Lake Louise, an emerald green glacial lake which is bloody cold but extremely beautiful. Whilst we were admiring the lake Diana spotted a huge lump of ice calving off the glacier about three miles from us, some 20 seconds later there was a boom that caught everyone’s attention, this is not something you see every day. From here we proceeded to Moraine Lake. Diana stayed guard in our ride and Dale and I ventured down to the lake. It was about three miles down a 45Degree slope but was worth it as the picture of the lake proved my vintage 20$ bill was in fact legitimate Canadian money. From there we were off to Golden, a short detour into British Columbia, Yet more traffic delays, in fact considerable traffic delays. There is a new bridge under construction and they had the road closed. The advertised 5 minute delay was close to an hour for us. We felt shitty until we saw the three mile long queue on the other side of the obstruction, with at least another mile of cars coming up behind them. Dinner had been already organised at a joint called “The Eagles Eye”, this is 14 kms from Golden by road and about 1 mile straight up, most of it by gondola. Up here at the top of the world you look down on three huge mountain ranges covered with snow. The restaurant is really flash and the food was to die for, but when we went to leave, the gondola was closed due to high winds and lightning. Some time later we did get away and although the gondola stopped and started all the way down we felt safe until Dale looked out the widow and said bugger me, look at the fucking big bear waiting down there for us all to fall out. It was a grizzly bear and looked bigger than a bus. He couldn’t reach us so we got back to Golden safely. Tomorrow we are off back to Alberta heading for The Columbia Ice fields and points further north.

---

Photos

Lake Moraine
Thisis the picture on the old Canadian 20$ bill

Bridge
this is a neat bridge under construction in Canada, a lot of the workers were women.