On Weds we left Sunwapta Falls for Jasper, which was less than an hour's drive. We arrived around midday and went to but a few supplies and some picnic lunch. We left straight for Maligne Canyon and Lake, both of which we had heard are beautiful. The lake is about 45 mins drive south east of Jasper and its a long slow road past pretty lakes on the way. 

Maligne Lake apparently means Evil Lake, as it was so difficult to cross....on horseback! We were amazed that they even tried to cross it, let along on horseback, as the lake is vast and deep and less than 5 degrees, so freezing cold.

Upon arriving at the lake we had a short picnic and then wandered to the boat house and hired a canoe to row around the lake rather than taking the organised boat tour. It was well worth it, the lake was peaceful and beautiful and it seemed surreal to be on the water surrounded by snow capped mountains. 

As we drove back from the lake, we noticed someone stop by the roadside looking int the bushes with his camera lens. We stopped to see what he was looking at and saw a beautiful mother black bear wandering along with 3 baby bears running along behind her. They were a handful, jumping, tumbling and playing all the way whilst she was doing her best to herd them along.

A few miles on, we stopped at the canyon to look at the view. It was deep and made me feel feint with vertigo! Nonetheless it was beautiful with raging waters at the bottom.

That evening, we wandered into Jasper for supper at Earls, a noisy modern bar. There were people sitting on balconies all around, overlooking the snowy mountains. It was a hot night and, for once, lost the alpine evening chill. Walking back to the hotel after supper through Jasper, the sun was low and the mountains had an amber glow. 

Also, a vital moment of our trip to point out, the moment when we needed spoons. You see, for our breakfast we bought granola and milk etc, but we didnt have any spoons! so on the way back from Earls we popped into a small supermarket and saw at the last minute plastic spoons for 5cents each.  Hallelujah! even though they were a bit of a rip off we still treasure them now. 

Jasper's high street is flanked by the railway and the most incredible freight trains go by, some of them taking 7 or 8 minutes to pass as they are miles long!

At one point along the route, we suddenly realised some large deer-like creatures in the middle of the road - Elks! These huge horse size animals were grazing on the bushes and trees planted down the middle of the road!

Gina, with an insert from Jazz

{Guess which ;) }

On Tuesday we left Lake Louise early, after a good bagel brekkie at the village deli. It was cold, about 2 degrees, and mum had already bought a woolly hat and gloves! We knew it would be a long drive to Sunwapta Falls near Jasper, and we thought we'd probably want to stop several times on the way as it was due to be a stunning drive. 

After about a 45 min climb, we found ourselves surrounded by massive snow capped mountains and big, big skies. We stopped by Peyto lake and hiked up to catch the view, both at the tourist viewing point and again an hour up the mountain near the peak. The vista was surreal, and out photos look like something downloaded from Getty images! You couldn't take a bad shot it you tried. The alpine wildflowers were so pretty, especially the Indian Paintbrush, all red and feathery. After that we headed North for another hour or so stopping by 'Big Bends' to have a picnic lunch overlooking a wall of scree and waterfalls. The journey then took us through the Columbia Icefields to the Athabasca Glacier, a whole bowl of snow in between two mountain peaks, which was apparently as deep as the Eiffel Tower is high! It was amazing to be in summer clothes in the mountains with snow all around us. Another hour or so took us to Sunwapta Falls where we stayed the night in a rather strange motel. It was a short walk from some beautiful waterfalls which was lovely, and the restaurant was good, but the room was very basic and a bit dark and with too many mosquitos! It was all good fun and we felt we'd seen a lot in one day.

Gina

We woke up at 8 to decide what our plan was for the day we planned to have a look at the Lake Louise and the infamous photo spot and then go white water rafting! Such fun ;)

The last time we did that was in California and we both thoroughly enjoyed that.

Sadly the weather wasn't great: Rainy, cold, windy and cloudy… :/

But still, we trudged along the road to Lake Louise. We got out of the car, 5 degrees, and I decided to put on my luckily brought beanie! Mum was left wishing for hats and gloves. Anyway, after taking the essential tourist shot and one wiv us innit, we made our way around the lake.
By this time the hail started falling so everyone went inside the nearby, overly-posh-but-not-beautiful, 'Fairmont Chateau' hotel. They had a beautiful store inside with all kinds of precious stones and even eagles carved out of antlers.

Because of the terrible weather it was not very busy, yay! So really, it worked in our favour!
It started to clear up as we started on our way back round the lake so we managed to get some good shots.

{A quick insight that mum wanted to point out: The petrol is only 123 cents a litre! It was only £25 to fill up :O Whereas back home it would be £100... That was a nice surprise.}

Later on in the day and it was time for our White Water Rafting! It was awesome.
We did the 'Whitewater Exciter' which, in rafting terms, was between a class II - IV
We didn't manage to get any pictures in fear of getting one of the cameras wet and also the photos that they offered were incredibly expensive so no photos to laugh yourself funny over...

And to top it all off, when we were driving back from the rafting experience all soggy we saw a double rainbow! xD It passed from one side of the road, a hilly area to the other. This means that we drove underneath one and also saw the end of it. Now, let me tell you, there was no pot of gold at the end however, the ground particles did have a very golden tinge. Maybe that's what they've been confused about...


Jazz

Today we are working our way from Calgary to Lake Louise via Banff town.

Observation #1: Cars have no front number plates, even in adverts! Does that mean they are frontally naked? :s
Observation #2: Canadian animals seem to be troubled... I don't really want to explain that, just trust me. Both encounters with other animals have not been nice.

First, once getting out of Calgary we went into a Walmart to get a cool bag, white wine -bottle opener-, pack of cards and warmer clothing.
Oh yeah, thats another thing. Both of us have packed pretty wrong.
When looking at the weather forecast from back home the lowest temperature at all of our stop off sites was 23 degrees. But, alas, they lied.
It's been around 15 degrees.

On the way we stopped off at Banff town however immediately after putting one foot out of the car, the rain started to fall :\ We some mexican for lunch which was pretty okay, but freezing inside, and continued walking around and trying to find mum a pair of hiking trousers and polarising sunglasses. We succeeded with the latter.

We arrived at our hotel for the next 2 nights, The Post Hotel and arranged our stuff in -all over- our room. Then we checked out the nearby village of Lake Louise to see what it had to offer and ask some questions in visitor information.
For dinner, we were going to walk out to a restaurant called 'The Railway Station' in which we cheekily shared a salad and garlic cheesy toast. Just as mum said 'I wish a train would come to see what it's like' exactly that happened.
No jokes, the train carried on for at very least 1mile.

So that was our first night in Lake Louise.

Sorry for the lack of 'good' photos but at least it gives an idea of what it was like. The first photo is the B&B that we stayed in in Calgary, anyone reminded of Bear in the Big Blue House? Most of the landscape ones were taking from the road on the way to Banff.

Jazz

 Flight went well, arrived 30mins early and the pilot came and talked to us as mum knows someone who knows someone etc he was very lovely. Also we met a very sweet, kind and well informed couple on the flight. The man was canadian and grew up in a place called Longview just an hour detour on the route from Calgary to Lake Louise which is apparently incredibly beautiful and quaint. They recommended lots of places to go to in Calgary and some accommodation suggestions also. Quite a few of them we happened to have been booked into already! Lucky us.

So, It's our 1st morning here and already the first change to our itinerary. Typical. We originally booked a Dodge Caliber{with the subtitle or similar} thinking that it was like a small SUV, oops. Leaving us with a Ford Focus... :/
But, we did manage to change cars to a Ford Escape. Pretty lush and has iPod connection, the ultimate necessity.

Later on we found ourselves wandering around Calgary trying to find one of the recommendations by the flight couple, Wicked Wedge Pizzeria on 17th SW Avenue. We guessed that most of the places on this street were closed or in reconstruction due to the floods as it was pretty run down. So we got the train back to downtown Calgary an walked around a bit.

The first thing I noticed when arriving in Canada is the lack of people.
It's insane! It's empty!
Being in the middle of a city on a 'high street' with only 4 other people surrounding you... Weird.

But yeah, so we just got back from a Neapolitan Pizzeria having shared a Pizza and Salad for some dinner, was delicious and the people are just so lovely! Everyone here has just been so kind, polite and friendly. And talkative may I add..

Anyway. We are a bit sleepy now so will pop off to bed and add the photos tomorrow.

OOPS I forgot to mention that we went inside a mall which on the top floor had gardens, indoors! So the flowery photos were in there, we also managed to grab a frozen yoghurt on the way back. In peach flavour may I add, which was delish!

Jazz

A shared passion of ours and many others is Travel. To explain this passion, Henry Rollins...

I beg young {all} people to travel. If you don't have a passport, get one. Take a summer, get a backpack and go to Delhi, go to Saigon, go to Bangkok, go to Kenya. Have your mind blown, eat interesting food, dig some interesting people, have an adventure, be careful. Come back and you're going to see your country differently, you're going to see your president differently, no matter who it is. Music, culture, food, water. Your showers will become shorter. You're going to get a sense of what globalisation looks like. You're going to see that for some people, their day consists of walking 12 miles for four buckets of water. And that some lessons that you can't get out of a book that are waiting for you at the other end of that flight. A lot of people Americans, Europeans... come back and go, "Ohhh."

And the lightbulb goes on.

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/9995043/?claim=7y6787z9j57">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>