Since Kayaking we have been on a big road trip through BC
and Alberta. We hired a car and bought a mapbook and tent in Vancouver and
headed off. So far we’ve been through Whistler, Kelowna, Golden, Banff,
Drumheller and now Calgary. Hiring the car was kind of interesting as the
assistant tried to get us to upgrade our car type even taking us out to show us
the cars. Unfortunately the car he showed us didn’t actually belong to the hire
company and was another customers private car.
Camping is a bit different to back home. Everyone here seems
to have a massive RV/Campervan, tents are by far the minority and some
campgrounds don’t even offer tent sites. We like getting our tent setup and
then sitting there in the evening watching people struggle to back their RV on
to the site. Some take 15min or more and have even seen one give up and leave.
We had a good time in Whistler catching up with Dusk’s
cousin Mel and her boyfriend Will. Will became our private mountain biking
guide, showing us around Whistlers tracks. We even got Dusk to come along (shes
never come mountain biking before) and she seemed to like it. Unfortunately
that didn’t last as a few days later on the Kettle Valley rail trail an
overweight North American didn’t move over for Dusk and she went crashing into
the side of a bridge. She had a good imprint of a bolt in her shin and a lot of
bruising but she was okay after a bit of patching up and a hug.
We spent a few nights in Golden as the Kicking Horse
skifield is nearby and its one of our possibilities for the winter. We had a
really nice camp spot on the bank of the Kicking horse river just as it comes
out of the canyon. Dusk wasn’t so keen on it as she got woken up about 4 times
a night with trains rumbling along the main trunk line on the opposite bank, I
quite liked the trains though.
We went on a rafting trip down the Kicking Horse river one
day we were there. Our guide was Sandy a Kiwi and he was really good. He chose
to take the oldest raft in the fleet which was a lot more flimsy than the new
boats and at times struggled to float but this turned out to be great as we got
stuck or swamped in just about every rapid and eddy and seemed to have a lot
more fun than anyone else on the river. At one rapid where the raft got just
about folded in half Dusk all but fell out and the only thing that stopped me
falling out was the guy opposite falling on my legs and trapping them in the
raft. The highlight was at the end where we jumped out of the raft and swam
through a grade 3 rapid.
After Golden we moved onto the big name national parks of
Yoho, Jasper and Banff. We did a couple of day hikes to Emerald basin and the
Plain of six glaciers plus several shorter walks. We also drove up the Ice
field parkway towards Jasper which has some amazing mountains. We were
expecting to see a fair amount of wildlife around this area but actually saw
virtually none. Its been the big disappointment of the trip so far as we both
really wanted to see bears especially and have only seen one in a refuge
enclosure. Its not that there aren’t any around (Weve seen plently of bear scat
and even stood in it) its just we seem to be unluckly. We talked to some
friends who had seen 4 in one day along the road side which just made us more
disappointed.
I somehow managed to get quite sick on our last night in
Banff. Think it was probably something I ate since I did the cooking I’ve only
got myself to blame. Wasn’t much fun scrambling out of the tent several times in
the middle of the night to be sick, especially when you know that there are
bears around. Dusk didn’t get sick so I think I must have a weak stomach which
doesn’t bode well for South America.
We have had an interesting time finding decent food at times.
Dusk likes to check all the labels to see what additives etc is in stuff.
Everything seems to be sweetened, the bread especially, I think they would
sweeten sugar if they could figure out a way to do it. Finding any cheese that isn’t
coloured orange can be difficult and getting a decent coffee is almost
impossible. Its all really bitter and tastes burnt. The only good stuff weve
found has been made by foreigners.
There has been some
good food too. The salmon is excellent as you would expect and we seem to have
hit it about spot on for all the summer berries. Dusk was very happy at the
self pick strawberry farm. We have also found our new favourite food – Pork Parfait.
Its smoked pulled pork with mashed potato, gravy and spices. Sounds simple but
is great especially on a cold wet day at the Calgary Stampede.
The stampede and meeting up with our friends from Perth was
great apart from the foul weather (9 degree high, wind and rain) and me still
feeling a bit sick. Its basically the worlds biggest A&P show with a bunch
of other stuff in tow. Watching the cowboys sliding around and falling over in
the mud was the highlight of the rodeo part. It think the judges started giving
points to the ones that stayed the cleanest.
Anyway thats all for now.
Chris
