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Published: July 21st 2005
so our time in Lake Louise has come to an end. Basically it wasn't all it was cracked up to be and basically we were miserable, So why bother staying if we are miserable right???? Thats what we figured so at 3:15am we are hopping on the bus and going to Toronto, we will be on the bus for about 2.5 days but we will get to see the countryside as we go!!
Here we are going to tour around Quebec and Ontario for a couple of weeks and then hit the states for a month or so on the trains and work our way back upto Ottawa where we will look for jobs for winter. So anyway we are excited and don't have any plans as to where we will be when we are going to see what happens when we are on the road.
Now to update youon what we have been doing the last couple of weeks - sorry we haven't written much earlier not rreally in the mood - anyway, a few weeks back we went and visited the columbian icefields. For those we haven't written to about this or didn't manage to catch it on Getaway basically it is this HUGE ice cube, it is millions of years old and is shrinking rather fast which is a problem as it supplies a lot of North America with clean drinking water. Anyway to give you an idea as to how big it is - at one point it is as thick as the Eiffel Tower is tall and is 365KM2 (i think) anyway it is huge and cold (well der it is ice isn't it???)
You catch these cool snow mobiles out onto the surface ofthe glacierand walk around for about 15 mins which goes so fast its not really enough time to do much. But it is definately a worthwhile experience. On the way back we were lucky enough to see an avalanche, it wasn't huge but it was an avalanche none the less.
A few days after we went to the ice fields we went witewater rafting!!! this was so much fun. The water was so cold but we were kitted up with a wetsuit, fleece jumper, rain jacket, booties and gloves as well as a helmet. To start with we are given the safety talk about what to do if we fall out or get flipped. At this stage i'm thinking ok am i going to be able to remember this as i'm freezing in the water... but i got on the boat anyway. When we first get on the boat it is all calm and we don't have any water splashing over the sides so we're like this isn't so bad these wetsuits really do keep you warm. Well all that was to change about 5 mins later!!!
That's when we hit our first set of rapids, they were only little but there was water coming straight over the top of Woz ( e did act as a great buffer) and down the front of my wetsuit, even with all my layers of clothes it still got to the skin and was so cold it took my breath away!!! The worst part was that unlike the polar dip where we were able to get out of the water and dry off we still had a full day of rafting ahead of us..... oh no.... but it wasn't to bad the wetsuit kicked in and it wasn't untilwe had finished our trip and were on the shuttle bus back tothe base that i got really cold.
Back to the rafting - since it has been so wet here all the water levels are really hight and the water is moving so fast, consequently there were a lot of rapids that were big - well i thought they were big - but it wasn't to scary, the whole day was so much fun there was not a real lot of time tobe scared...... That was until our guides pulled our boats over to the bank and wanted to "assess" how bad the next section of the river was. this was where we were toenter the stage 4 rapid which is the second highest level of rapid intensity there is-atthis stage when i saw the rapid i was a littel scared, iwould rather have just appraoced the rapid without seeing just how ferocious it was. But our guide was geat she got usthrough without any lost paddles and better still no lost people, we were soakedthrough tothe bone but it was so worth it, we wanted to go back and do it again.
After this big rapid all the following rapids seemed like they were nothing. At onestage when we had the luxury of just floating down the river we spotted a mountain goat and kid high up on one of the skinny ledges, it is amazing how far up they go and don't even loose their footing.
After Whitewater rafting our next little adventure was into Calgary for the stampede... i wish there was more totellof this, but unfortunately it is just like the Sydney easter show, with a rodeo thrown in, don't get me wrong there are a lot of cowboys and wrangler buts some good some not so good 😊 but the rodeo was held during the day??? So we didn't get to see this. We thought that it would be with the chuck wagon races, and like home the finals be held at night sowe prepared ourselves and turned upat night. It was a little dissapointing to find out that we didn't get to see the actual rodeo but we have been to lots back home and we gotto see the chuckwagon races which we don't have at home. The chuckwagons are cool to watch those blokes are crazy who drive those forsome races the wagons were4 wide coming around the last corner racing to the finish line.
Since we got back last week we have done nothing, just packing ready to go on our next trip.
Well take care all, next time we right we will be in the east coast somewhere....
Cheers 😊
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Leanne
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Enjoy.
Have fun, and take care.Can't wait to read about it.