Days 313 to 318 - There's bears in them there hills!!

What do you think about when you imagine Canada?

For us it is mountains, rivers, bears & maple leaves! Well coming to Jasper and Banff National Parks certainly ticked all the boxes on our ideas of what Canada is like. Known as the Rockies, they stretch over Alberta and British Columbia. To see them properly we decided to rent a car from Calgary and drive to the nearest mountain resort of Banff a two hour drive. Staying in Banff overnight before heading up to Jasper, the furthest point on our trip. We took a full day to drive the 350kms, stopping at Lake Louise and Moraine Lake.

Lake Louise is touted by many to be overrun by tourists and as a result lessens it’s charm. We honestly didn’t find this and believe if you fail to be impressed at the sight of the turquoise lake surrounded by beautiful mountains there is something lacking. Expecting a large number of tourists on the scale of a Macchu Picchu or Niagara Falls, we were undeterred and arrived to find a beautiful place worthy of being "one of the top 100 places to see before you die" according to the BBC. We took advantage of the kayak rentals on the lake and went for a paddle. It was very peaceful and serene.

Lake Moraine is less well known than Lake Louise, and only a ten minute drive away. There are certainly fewer tourists here, though the ones who offered to take our photographs were all from Northern Ireland!! Is there anyone left at home? Lake Moraine is equally as beautiful and certainly worth visiting.

We decided to take the scenic route to Jasper, well actually we took a wrong turn and went over 3 hours out of our way! Ah well, in such beautiful surroundings this was one wrong turn we didn’t mind. Arriving in Jasper late we had a walk around the town and decided to have a lovely Italian meal in Miss Italia restaurant. Along with our first bottle of Canadian red wine (yep, we didn’t realise they made it here either!) I don’t think we will be shipping any home or making a repeat purchase, but nice to taste!

We both felt really relaxed in Jasper, it kinda does that to you. All the people are lovely and it is smaller than Banff, so less hectic with so many tourists. Sure it is completely a tourist town but it hasn’t lost it’s village feel. There are loads of activities to do including White Water Rafting & horseriding. As we had done both before we decided to be at one with nature and explore the surrounding area on foot. Jasper has some great hiking trails all well mapped and a popular past time for Canadians and tourists alike. On our treks we did see various types of wildlife, including squirrels, mountain goats and deer. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see any bears, or should I say fortunately as we read in the paper a few days ago about a woman being attacked in Banff this week. Still it would have been nice to take a picture of Yogi and his mates from the safety of our car!!

Our return trip from Jasper brought us through the Icefields Parkway, route 93. This passes a number of glaciers and waterfalls. There was one in particular we wanted to see……Athabasca Glacier. If desired you can part with your dollars and pay Brewster tour company to take you onto the ridge of the glacier in one of their monster 80 seat ice buses. We decided keep our money and hike up and over the glacier. Taking around an hour and in very cold winds, it was incredible to see this massive sheet of ice, deeper in some parts than the height of the Empire State Building we had been in two weeks earlier. The glacier is receding and it was interesting to see the markings of where it had been in 1982, 1992 and 2002.

After a picnic lunch we headed on toward Bow Lake and Banff. The weather had decided to turn on us and as we arrived at Bow Lake it was raining heavily. We hiked up the trail to get a good view, took a picture and left.

So onto Banff and our Apline centre hostel. Karoke night was fun to say the least and it was great to catch up with Jodie and Kelly once again before they headed off on their moose tour. The crowd in the hostel were loads of fun and we enjoyed cooking again and having some banter. Whilst the hostel is great with all the amenities you would need, it is 2 kms outside Banff town, not easy if you don’t have wheels.

Banff is home to Sulphur Mountain, 8,042 feet. We decided to walk the 5.8km switchback trail to the top to get some great views and have lunch. The walk was tough in parts and finishing all our water only two thirds of the way up wasn’t a good idea. When we made it to the top it was covered and I mean covered in tourists. I was expecting a fanfare to greet me triumphantly, nope, just a lot of people who had taken the easy (read “smart“) way of getting to the top in the gondola. Also to our dismay the restaurant had closed five minutes prior to our arrival……Boooooooo. Deciding we didn’t like Sulphur Mountain we quickly hoofed it down in the said gondola, taking a swift 11 minutes to transport us to the bottom and our car!

Banff town is a pretty place with alpine architecture and LOTS of tourists. The main street, Banff Avenue, goes like this: tourist office, souvenir shop, restaurant, souvenir shop, tour booking office, café, souvenir shop…..you get the idea! It is VERY pretty and really does have nature on its door step but we prefer Jasper just for the smaller, friendlier feel. That being said, when you are somewhere on Earth so beautiful and splitting hairs on where is the nicer, it is not a bad life eh?!

We had one last thing we wanted to do in Alberta and that was have a home cooked meal with Laura. On Sunday we made the drive back to Calgary and stayed with her for the night before catching our plane to Vancouver. We had a really fun night and great food. We're both still recovering from the bowling fiasco on wii, think we have tennis elbow!!!! Thanks Laura and please keep Ireland at the top of your list….we will be waiting to show you around!xx

So now it’s off to Vancouver and the island, to see what it can offer.

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