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We arrived in Calgary fresh off the plane from eastern Canada. Dazed we found our way from Calgary Airport to the Greyhound station down the other end of town and hopped on a bus to the beautiful Banff. This was a very exciting time as the Rocky Mountains loomed closer.
We arrived at the Hostel an hour and a half later to enjoy some Fish n' Chips after checking in. The scenery, for want of a better word incredible, as you will see from the photos. We slept well that night thanks to the cool mountain air and prepared for two days in the mountains. Refreshed the next day we organised activities for the next couple of days. We sorted a tour of Lake Louise and Moraine Lake for that afternoon. Shirley our bus driver and tour guide turned out to be from Torquay and was very cheerful and explained how nowadays the park authorities were building animal overpasses so natural migration across the valley floor could occur - great! Both Lakes were beautiful and the camera lens was crying for mercy by the end of the day. Little did it know what was coming next.
We bought a package with the hostel which gave us a good deal on three activities two free breakfasts woo! White water rafting was included and on Canada Day (Canada's 142nd Birthday!) we went down to Kickinghorse Rapids (Grade 3 and 4 in places) were taken on under the watchful guide named Hamie (pronounced like Jamie but wutg an 'H'). Hamie even let Craig drive the boat at one point and commanded us to paddle hard at random intervals. Yeah we nearly hit some rocks which made Amanda (a nervous rower) squeal a little, but hey we didn't die! We met a nice chap from Belgium called Dax who was a big fan of partying and didn't mind telling us so! He was in our boat and didn't seem to want to get so on the second trip down river Craig kindly volunteered him for the front! Needless to say he got very wet and we later jumped in just to see what it would be like - freezing is the only word to describe it!
In the evening time we managed to go to Transformers 2 on Hot Tuesday where you got your ticket, popcorn and a drink for only ten dollars, bonus! Its a great watch, probably one for the lads and dads mostly. Anyway the next day we took a relaxing walk around the Vermillion Lakes. It was a long way so we didn't get around them but we made the journey worthwhile by making the cameras winch as we reached for their cases, but they did their job and they did it well, as you shall see. Later that day we visited the Banff Hot Springs which were certainly hot but not exactly natural. It turned out to be a swimming pool full of 39 degree water later described perfectly by a lady at our bus stop as "Human Soup" - lovely. Anyway we got an early night and made our way back for some food and an early night before leaving the next day. We did see bits of Wimbledon which made us miss the hype and feeling that comes with watching a Brit come through the competition. We didn't find out the fate of Andy Murray until we finally made it to Vancouver after a long 14 hours on the bus!
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