Banff, Canada
02-09-07: En Route to Banff, 8:02am
Despite the weirdness of day One, our taxi driver Sunday morning was great! He studied in Perth at Bentley TAFE! Weeny little world, ain’t it?
For breakfast I made fresh waffles, but had to eat them in the taxi because our bus to Banff was to leave Calgary City Greyhound shelter at 7:30am.
Leaving Calgary behind left me with a sense of unparalleled relief.
Seeing the Rockies rise on the horizon as we drove along the highway left me with a sense of stomach-tingling excitement and anticipation. The mountains are much grander and awe-inspiring than I expected . Yay for Canada! And waffles!!
02-09-07: Banff Begins
We arrived at the bus depot in Banff and immediately smiled. This is what we’ve been waiting for – crisp, fresh mountain air , flawless blue skies, that lovely stillness that only exists in small country towns. After booking our Thursday bus trip out of Banff, we wandered the town. Being 9am on a Sunday, little was open. With 3 hours to kill before we could pick up our car, we decided to get breakfast, use the Interweb and then wander the town once the shops opened.
Banff is exactly what anyone would expect of a town in a national park. It exists solely for tourism, so as quaint as it is, there is an unarguable sensation on constructedness, of conscious quaintness. The shops are dominated by figurines, furs, Canadian delicacies and postcards.
At 12, we picked up our car (a monster Dodge sedan), and began the adventure of driving on the wrong side of the road.
We found our hotel almost by accident, driving along Lake Louise Drive and suddenly spotting it by the roadside. A collection of red timber cabins, it looked exactly as we’d hoped. We couldn’t check in until four, but as we sat in the carpark, we saw a pine marten (very briefly)!
After attempting to battle to traffic to Lake Louise (Banff’s apparent piece de resistance), we gave up and chose to walk. It was a short trek with a nasty hill that left me convinced that I have undiagnosed asthma.
Lake Louise has an enormous reputation. It is meant to be one of the most stunning examples of natural beauty. It did not disappoint. Blindingly turquoise water leads to a dramatic glacier, imbedded between snow-capped mountains. It is particularly strange to see snow, but not feel cold. Sadly, the high volume of tourists and the hideous monstrosity of a hotel right on the shore diminished the sense of awe and breathlessness we should have felt.
We decided to leave and come back in the morning, before the arrival of copious numbers of tourists.
The next hour was killed buying groceries and booze for the night. Our cabin was self-service, so we decided to have Bison burgers for tea. Yum!
Despite our best intentions, we were asleep by 9pm.
03-09-07: Lakes, Lakes and Lakes
We’re lucky to have fallen into a cycle of early mornings, because Banff is stunning at dawn – plus not many people are crazy enough to be up that early!
Our first stop was Lake Louise – we wanted to experience it again without hordes of tourists. There were only one or two other couples there at 7am, and for the first time we could really feel the magic of the lake. Clouds hung low, and the snowy peaks of mountains were golden in the dawn sun. The turquoise lake was mirror-like, still, untouched. At a sight like that, all you can do is grin. You instinctively whisper – even the sound of your camera seems inappropriate. Sadly, this beautiful moment only lasted 15 or so minutes – the tourists began arriving. We started to walk around the lake, but couldn’t escape the horrific nasal Kath Day-Night voice of this other tourist. Ugh! We were also so keen on seeing wildlife, that noisy, inconsiderate tourists and their dogs would definitely make this impossible. For that reason, we decided to abandon Lake Louise for a hopefully more tourist-free location.
Our second lake was therefore Lake Moraine at 8:15am. Lake Moraine was nestled between four mountains, and, while being a well-known and popular lake, it tends to be neglected by tourists who beeline straight to Lake Louise. It was clear that it would be more stunning in winter, but the complete lack of people was very welcome. We walked through a forest path, and although we saw only a squirrel, the absolute peace was wonderful. The forest was dewy, green fresh. We dawdled, enjoying the fresh morning. About 1km in, another couple caught up with us. Damn. Enchantment over.
We finished the walk, then decided to return to our driving and stopping as it took our fancy. Our first stop was the Spiral Tunnels, which was a little less exciting than the full carpark suggested, but still cool. It’s basically a crazy arse train tunnel that goes in the top of one mountain, and out the bottom of another. Crazy spirally tunnel! James mocks it’s coolness, but all that proves is how uncool he is. The greatest thing about it was that there was a massive train going through the tunnel at the time; it was so big, that it was still going into the tunnel at the same time that it was coming out of it (and it was a loooong tunnel)! Trust me. It was cool.
We drove on. Next stop was a whim as well. We saw a sign for something called Tokkukawa (?) Falls. The detour took a long time, but mainly because we had to crawl around several crazy hairpin bends (including a z-bend where an RV was having to drive on the wrong side of the road to get around the corner).
I had relatively low expectations for the waterfall, and then we rounded a corner and I was speechless. The waterfall were visible miles before we reached them. Unbeknownst to us, our random detour had taken us to one of Canada’s highest waterfalls.
Fed by a glacier between two mountains, the waterfall bursts out of the mountainside and slams downwards. The sheer force and volume of the water was simply awesome.
500m from the fall, we could feel the spray from the water. We gazed it for a long time, not speaking, just gazing.
Two other amusing things we saw that day were a penko, a cute little Canadian hamster-thing, and three nuns admiring the falls.
We drove on. Our final stop was Emerald Lake, a peaceful lagoon-type lake in BC (we crossed state lines!). We drank Diet Coke as we dangled our feet off a jetty.
By this time, it was about 2pm, and we were feeling pretty exhausted, so we decided to head back. We stopped by the town of Lake Louise, and bought buns for our repeat dinner of Bison burgers and came home to the cabin, which is where I am as I write this, watching Judge Judy, drinking Canadian Club and about to go hunting for pine martens. Woohoo!
04-09-07: My Canadian Birthday
The plan for my birthday was that we would see some animals! We left at 7am and began the drive to Jasper National Park. This drive would take us along Icefields Parkway, in the hope of seeing a moose wading in the shallows, or a bear eating dandelions by the roadside. We saw neither.
Sadly, the nasty cold I was carrying chose my birthday to really its virusy little claws in. I had barely slept the night before because my hose has been blocked, so I was feeling very spaced-out all Tuesday.
My enthusiasm for animal spotting faded, and I began to feel extremely fatigued. We made several stops along the way: Horace Lake, Hector Lake, some nice views, etc. We were heading chiefly to the glacier tour inside the start of Jasper National Park.
We arrived at the glacier at about 10:30am. I’d had time to rest, so I was feeling a lot perkier. The tour was fantastic, we caught a bus up to the edge of the glacier, and then got an ‘Ice Explorer’ vehicle. It was so surreal to think that we were actually driving on the surface of a glacier (albeit one that was 300 feet thick!). The tour guides were really interesting, funny and charismatic – one even looked exactly like a young John Travolta! We padded along the ice for a good 10-15 minutes before our hands got too numb.
Back in the car, we drove the last 150km to Jasper, only to find it a little bit crap. Well, not ‘Field’ crap (a two street town near Emerald Lake) or ‘Calgary’ crap, but just not very beautiful or interesting. We ate burgers in a diner, then drove back to Banff, arriving at around 5pm. We had a yummy frozen pizza and CC & Dry for dinner, then went to bed early (for a change!).
05-09-07: Why Is The Day After Your Birthday Always Better??
Another early morning!! I was feeling a lot better this day, and ready to give wildlife spotting one last chance.
We left at 6:45am, and drove quickly to Lake Louise for one last photo, but it was a little too dark.
The plan was to go into Banff via Parkway, where a family of wolves are often sighted. We did a quick detour to the Gondola, but could see none of the mountain goats and bears that are rumoured to hang out there.
Alert as always, we began to slowly drive down Bow Parkway, bitching about how stupid Banff’s supposedly ubiquitous wildlife was. We agreed that our minimum expectations were even seeing one measly deer. Lo and behold, halfway down the Parkway, we finally saw a lone deer (which ran away as quickly as it appeared). We drove on, barely cheered, but at least relieved that there was indeed some wildlife in Banff!!
A few minutes on and we saw a group of cars stopped by the side of the road! We stop as well, and I could see a distinct animal shape in front of a car up ahead. I was convinced it was a bear, and I screamed at James to drive closer. Just as he was about to, he said, ‘There’s a dog behind us.’ I turned to him and said, ‘That’s not a dog! It’s a wolf!’. The animal up ahead also revealed itself as a black wolf. Needless to day, we were very excited, and we took many blurry photos!
Further on, we saw six mountain goats huddled by the side of the road. So! Not a moose, a bear, or a elk, but we still saw enough to keep us happy.
We then drove to an abandoned mining town and wandered around (amused by squirrels throwing ntus down from the top of trees – I threw one at James and pretended it was the squirrel. Such fun!). We drove to our final Banff lake, lolled in the fun for a bit and then said a sad goodbye to our car and returned it.
Our accommodation for Banff town was…interesting. Hidden behind a much nicer hotel and the nice hotel acted as the crappier hotel’s reception!), it was basically a tin shed that had been converted into rooms. The actual rooms were nice, but the halls were cheap and weird.
We hung out in our room for a bit before heading into town for lunch and shopping. We drank cocktails on the roof of a bar, gazing out at the mountains, then made our way to where we thought the Banff golf course was (in the hopes of seeing some elk). Unfortunately, James hadn’t brought his map, so we got hopelessly lost and ended up returning to the hotel for drinks.
We decided to have my birthday dinner that night, and went for an amazing fodue dinner, where we had a cheese fondue starter, boar/venison/buffalo fondue main, and chocolate fondue for dessert. Yum!!