15 hours driving over and around mountains but we finally made it to Banff. The little car proved itself quite well. Had a little concern after a 15km stretch up steep mountains where I had to pedal to the floor the whole way, only got to about 65kph and the engine was heating right up but once we got to the top all was cool.
Couldn't have imagined better scenery for a road trip. The mountains are so huge, reminded us a lot of the Andes but a bit rockier. Made the trip feel like it was only 12 hours.
We didn't see any wildlife at all until 14 hours in when we finally spotted some black bears! It was a big one with a couple of cubs. We pulled over but they ran away back into the forest, didn't get any good photos. After that we saw plenty of deer and possibly a few elk or cariboo.
Banff village is a really cool place, fairly upper class and super touristy. I can definately see why this is a tourist trap in spring time.
Did the drive to Lake Louise and took in the sights. Bec proclaimed it "the most beautiful place we've been to", which says a lot considering where we've been so far. Didn't stay too long there because we didn't have a park pass and we didn't want to get caught.
Next stage of our trip will take us to San Francisco, about 2000km's away I think. We're going to do it in 3 days, hopefully the driving won't be as severe after that.
