The flight from
Muscat to Calgary
was long, 19 hours with a 3 hour stopover at Frankfurt,
but not too tiring. Disappointingly,
there were not too many movies on offer.
The only good one that I hadn’t seen was The Reader, the movie that Kate Winslet won the Best Actress Oscar
for this year. I loved it. In fact, I watched it twice. Towards the end of the journey, the guy
sitting next to me was watching it, and I surreptitously watched it over his
shoulder!
Leigh-Ellen
met me at Calgary and we drove up to Banff, in the Canadian
Rockies. We woke up to snow on the first morning, so like the Aussie that I am,
I was out there taking photos almost immediately. There was just enough snow to coat the cars
and the trees and it looked so pretty.
The mountains were lovely, with snow on their summits, and in the
morning after Leigh-Ellen left for her relay race to Jasper, I soaked in the jacuzzi
while admiring the mountain views through the glass walls and watching the snow
falling outside. Bliss!
Crystal, a
friend from Japan, who lives
in Calgary, and who I haven’t seen for 9 years, drove
up to Banff in the morning with her boyfriend,
John, and we drove up to Lake Louise for
lunch. A beautiful lake surrounded by
mountains, with an incredible glacier just hanging off the mountain, looking
like it will fall into the lake at any moment.
After they left I drove on to Jasper, picking Leigh-Ellen up on the way,
after her run, all the way looking out for wildlife like bears and moose. Alas, no sightings.
I was keen to
see some wildlife on our drive from Jasper to Vancouver and wasn’t disappointed. We saw a few bears and one in particular who
stood up by the side of the road and then ran across the road right in front of
our car. We also saw a gopher, a fox and
some deer, however moose are still being elusive. The mountain views have been nothing less
than spectacular since Banff. All snow capped and very pretty.
On the way
to Vancouver we stayed a night in Chilliwack, a name that I
loved to mispronounce, which made Leigh-Ellen chuckle. We didn’t know Wayne’s apartment number and squirmed our way
into his building, after which he took us for pie at the airport! Very yummy!
We stayed at an ancient, restored hotel in the centre of town, in a room
that had the bathtub in the same room as the bed! I woke up in the middle of the night and Leigh-Ellen was sleeping on the floor!! Aparently I was snoring very loudly and she was trying to get away from me. But it was fun and they served a mean bacon
and eggs for breakfast, for which Wayne
joined us. Then we went shopping in the
towns second-hand shops and I swapped the bag that I had brought with me for
hols, that I loathed after one day because it was too deep and I couldn’t find
anything, for a quilted jacket. Great
bargain.
The weather
in Vancouver,
where we are staying with Matt, a friend of Leigh-Ellen’s, is much milder. Matt has a glorious apartment on the 7th
floor, all glass, overlooking English Bay and West
Vancouver. He’s
taken the day off work today and we’re going out sightseeing somewhere. We went to a vegetarian Mexican restaurant
last night and Leigh-Ellen ate enough food for 3 people, it was so delicious! Leigh-Ellen made me buy some strips you put on your nose to decrease snoring and apparently I was good for the first half of the night last night, which is better than not at all!
