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Hello hello! It's hard to believe that it's been little more than 24 hours and already I have a million more stories to tell…Monday morning we woke up early in Kamloops and had breakfast at Denny's, which was…interesting haha for anyone who's never had a Denny's experience it's basically fast food served on a plate in a restaurant and is the kind where the scrambled eggs look suspicially like they came from a packet mix…but we're travellers, and it's an included breakfast, so we all wolfed it down regardless! Then we hopped on the bus and headed for the Rocky Mountains. Along the way we saw some really amazing blue lakes, which get a really rich turqoise colour because the water that runs through them is fed through a glacier. Glaciers are like really super dense chunks of ice built up over thousands of years that have no air bubbles in them so it's very hard to break, and when they begin to melt some particles come off them that reflects to the human eye a really strong blue. So when you see the pictures of mountains and lakes and the lakes look really blue, they are in fact that colour! (Except that my camera doesn't seem to be able to translate that so my photos really don't do it justice…)
Anyway, first stop was white water rafting in the Fraser River. As we moved further into the Rockies it got quite chilly and I began to wonder how sensible my decision to go rafting was, considering we would be doing it in one of these glacially fed rivers…we got geared up with very sexy attire including wetsuits, waterproof jackets, super cute wetsuit booties, lifejackets and helmets. In order to get my helmet on my head the instructor did a bit of a "Cool Runnings" whack! Haha Then they preceded to tell us about all the scary things that might happen to us and get us to sign a waiver saying that was OK and we wouldn't sure them if things did go awry. It always makes me nervous when they do these scary pep talks, but I guess that have to really, and we got pretty much the same talk going canoeing, which is far less of a risk! So I was feeling really quite nervous, and then one of the instructors nominated me to "volunteer" to sit up the front of the raft to block the spray of water back on everyone else. Cheers mate. Turns out though, I had the very best seat on the boat! Whilst I did get completely and utterly soaked I also got the steepest, funnest bits of the rapids! And they were only Class 3 rapids anyway so I'd be lying if I said they were anything really super scary.
Later that day we got into Jasper and it turned out that my complete and utter pot luck, my room mate and I had been assigned to the executive suite in the hotel we were staying at! So not only did we each have our own bedroom with a queen sized bed, but we also had a living room and kitchen. So that evening we had a small group of the girls over for dinner and drinks. I made some vege stir-fry and bathed in the glory of A) cooking my own food and B) consuming copious amounts of vegetables. When you're travelling your food choices can be pretty limited when you don't have cooking facilities, and I've eaten enough overpriced ham and cheese sandwiches in the past few days for one lifetime! So after our lovely home cooked meal we went down to the hotel pub (making several trips back up to our room with various visitors to gloat about our amazing room!) for a while before heading to bed.
The following day we got on the coach and went out to Lake Maligne. On the way we stopped to do a short one hour hike to look at some waterfalls and then once we arrived at the lake, some of the group went off on a lake cruise and the rest of us stayed behind. I really enjoyed having a couple of hours to myself and caught up on some postcard writing whilst sitting on the deck of a beautiful lakeside café. We got really lucky with the weather and there was sunshine all day! We also got ridiculously lucky with wildlife sightings and saw a total of 12 bears during the one day, 9 of which were sighted within a mile on the roadside. Our tour manager Jordan was beside himself and said he had never seen anything like it, many tours don't see any bears at all. Most were groups of three with a Mum and two cubs ie. The kind you really don't want to get to close to, because mother bears can be really quite aggressive! Nonetheless we still saw a bunch of stupid tourists out of their cars right on the edge of the road snapping away. Our driver Robbie is yelling out the window "Are you crazy?? Do you wanna die?? Get back in your cars!". We also saw an Elk and few cute little chipmunks. That evening we had dinner at the local pizza place and then headed to bed for an early night.
The next day was an early 7:30 departure and today we're heading further into the Rockies to Banff! Along the way we made several scenic stops, including one at the Athabasca glaciers where we took a special ice bus over the top of the glacier. There are only about 30 of these vehicles in the world and this is one of the only places on earth that regular tourists can actually ride across the top of a glacier. Next up was Pito Lake, another glacially fed lake with that incredible turquoise colour. Our tour guide Jordan said to us to think of something that had been happening back home that might have bothering us, even just something small, and to leave it here at Pito Lake. It was the kind of place that really took your breath away. We stopped for a picnic lunch by another lake and admired more beautiful views (I apologise for a million scenery shots, but everything we see is just so amazing and SO different to anything we have back home…and yet you really have to be amongst it to truly understand the impressive nature and the grandeur of the mountains, as well as things like the colour of the glacial lakes. They have such a vibrant turquoise blue colour that's brilliantly contrasted against the deep blue of the skies. And when the light shines across the mountains through the trees it's lovely because you get small patches of strong green colour, and others that are so dark they almost look black. Blah, sorry I rambling but if you saw it you'd understand why! Haha) We also acted like total tourists and oo-ed and ah-ed and took about a million photos of a squirrel!
In the afternoon we arrived at Lake Louise and spent an hour there wandering around the lake itself as well as the famous Fairmont Chateau. And I've now decided on my honeymoon destination =D haha It was incredibly beautiful, although the sky was a little overcast by that stage so the photos I've taken don't quite reflect the true colours of the lake and the trees. The chateau is absolutely gorgeous too, and priced to match, at something around $8000 a night for the rooms with the lake views. It's very grand and has this amazing dining room that overlooks the lake with big, tall windows and a lady playing the harp. So I wandered around looking like a very out of place back-packing tourist, then headed outside to sit by the lake until we left. Now we're on our way to Banff and will be staying in little quad share chalets WITH OUR KITCHENS!!! Yay! Aaah it's the simple things in life…
LIVxo
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