August 27th

. . . and we have had the most wonderful time!

So, here we are back in Vancouver with yet another 'block' of our grand tour completed and what a fantastic trip it has been. The word awesome, in its original and 'proper' sense kept leaping into our heads as we encountered time and again the almost unbelievable beauty created by the forces of nature. I know that sounds completely manufactured and over the top, but it is so true!

We finished our last post as we arrived in Jasper, which we discovered was a very pleasant town - another example of a tourist destination which had not become tacky. Unfortunately, smoke from the BC fires continued to be a problem and after checking the weather forecast the night we arrived, we decided to change our plans completely. Friday the 20th therefore saw us heading down the Icefields Parkway towards Lake Louise instead of prowling around Jasper, as the forecast was for rain on Saturday, the day on which we were to travel down to Banff along the Parkway. As the Icefields Parkway is one of Canada's iconic highways, it would have been very sad for the scenery for which it is so famous to have been obscured by cloud and rain,so we made the decision to drive down and back so if it the weather was no good on Saturday we wouldn't be sad.

Our first stop at the Athabasca Falls set the scene for the journey - the Athabasca River thunders through a narrow gorge cut through the rock over milennia.

As we continued the smoke was less thick so we were able to see more and more of the rugged peaks which dominate the drive. We are not going to try and describe every wonderful sight as this blog would go on far too long! Suffice to say that every bend in the Icefields Parkway revealed a view more stunning than the last. By the time we reached Lake Louise we had seen it all - towering mountain peaks, huge rushing rivers, wide meandering rivers, plunging waterfalls, massive glaciers flowing over the edges of mountains, wildlife (we saw a Black Bear feeding on berries by the side of the road) and lakes the colour of which is breathtaking because of the 'rock flour' from glacial action suspended in the water. For visitors from a dry, ancient land like ours this was scenery to take the breath away.

We reached Lake Louise at the southern end of the Parkway and it is as beautiful as the tourist brochures say - a huge lake, teal coloured in the sunlight. There were, however, way too many people for us so we took yet more photos, grabbed a coffee and started the 230kms back to Jasper, happy with our decision as we had been rewarded with a largely sunny day.

Friday's sightseeing in Jasper was seriously compromised by smoke and as our B and B host Connie said to us 'it was a day for looking down, not up'. We did therefore enjoy Maligne Canyon, claimed to be one of the most spectacular gorges in the Canadian Rockies, but the other much-lauded sights were fairly well obscured. We did, however, see some wonderful wild animals as we drove around - another Black Bear, a male Mule Deer, female and young Elk and a family of Loons feeding on a lake.

Saturday we travelled back down the Parkway and as we got further south the smoke was less and less. We took Kim and Andy's advice and travelled up to Bow Summit to see Peyto Lake and talk about a scene too good to be true! This photo, which is an 'autostitch' of three separate photos, looks as if we have tampered with the colour of the water.

 

Decided we should visit Moraine Lake, which is near Lake Louise, despite the hordes we knew would be there and what an inspired decision - a Grizzly Bear crossed the road in front of us, climbed up the bank and proceeded to eat berries! How lucky were we? Murray keeps insisting that it is good timing and planning - nothing to do with luck!

We had the next two nights in Banff and we enjoyed this far more than we thought we would. The mountains around here are quite different - huge, grey, imposing limestone peaks with much less vegetation. Weather was a bit varied, but there were plenty of sightseeing opportunites between showers and we saw . . . yes, more wild animals! Male, female and young Big Horn Sheep, a huge male Elk with massive antlers and a White-tailed Deer.

We also encountered the Black-billed Magpie, a lovely bird which reminded us more of Choughs than our magpies. Also saw a couple of Loons (very far away!) and a Blue Heron. We have been constantly disappointed by the few birds we have spied though, even though we have been in extensive forest areas and checked out heaps of wetlands. Maybe the water is too cold up here for the macro-invertebrates the wetland birds need? We need to have a Gordon or a Brian Thomas travelling with us to answer the constant questions which arise!

We left Banff last Sunday and travelled back to Lake Louise via the Bow Valley Parkway, stopping off at the amazing Johnston Canyon. From here we turned west on the Trans Canada Highway and after initially thinking that we were in 'gentler' terrain, we found ourselves crossing from Alberta back into British Columbia and the Kootenay National Park (don't you just love that name!). By the time we had descended the Kicking Horse Pass (if you are into trains google the Spiral Tunnels and read about how they solved the problem of bringing trains across this pass) and were in the Yoho National Park.

From here we passed through Glacier National Park, with its 430 glaciers and then into Revelstoke National Park. What a surfeit of glorious scenery and incredible mountain travel - it is certainly more exciting than the Icefields Parkway in that respect. Walked through a magnificent area of old growth Western Red Cedar temperate rainforest (unusual because it is so far from the coast) and were once again horrified that people can bring their dogs into national parks in this country. Horror of horrors, we even saw a cat tethered to a huge RV in a camping area along the Icefields Parkway, which is in the Jasper and Banff National Parks!

On to Revelstoke, a lovely little mountain town where we stayed the night and enjoyed one of the best nights of music ever (Balnarring Musos' Nights excluded of course). A Vancouver band called Blackberry Wood played in the Grizzly Plaza from 7 - 10 and what a fantastically exciting band they were. Murray appointed himself their publicist for the night and flogged their CD to the crowd - don't know how he could go about organising an Australian tour, but it would be a great idea!

Next morning we got ourselves up the Meadows in the Sky Parkway on Mt Revelstoke before any other pesky tourists, drove up to the car park (seeing a gorgeous Hoary Marmot on the way) and then walked the 1km up to the summit (I didn't care what damage I did to knees, ankles etc - I just wasn't missing out!). What a magic time - 360 degrees of the stunning Columbian Mountains all around, many with snow and glaciers and the wildflower meadows were a sight to behold. The quietness was divine - no noisy tourists with no sense of place to spoil things and to upset the little chipmunks which were darting amongst the undergrowth collecting food.

From here we headed back into Revelstoke to visit the Railway Museum - we are still trying to impress Gordon and Scott with our commitment to trains (a vitally important part of the development of Canada as a nation) and then took off south into the Okanagan Valley, a major area of orchards and vineyards. It seemed to be one long lake - so much water, yet the hills all around looked incredibly dry. We made it to our destination Osoyoos, which is at the southern end of the valley and Canada's only desert. Stayed the night in a wonderful B and B and then the next morning we had a fascinating walk around the Osoyoos Desert Centre and were very lucky (more good planning says Murray!) to see a Gopher Snake crossing the road as we drove in.

Then embarked on the drive back to Vancouver - more mountains, rivers and lakes and arrived back at Kippers and Liette's about 5pm. This has been an amazing part of our trip and because of that I have to apologise for going on and on about it!!!
Today I saw a quote by Emily Carr, one of Canada's foremost landscape artists and it just sums it up perfectly:

There is something bigger than fact:

the underlying spirit,

all it stands for,

the mood, the vastness,

the wildness.

It is unbelievable that we have been here for almost seven weeks and only have our few days in Vancouver and our time on Vancouver Island to go! Will do a final update from there before we head for home on the 8th.