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Up early (well, just after 7am) to get ready to leave by 8:30am to get a park in Banff. We arrived at the Banff Recreation Centre to easily get a park. We then headed into town on foot to the Main Street (Banff Ave). We found where to catch the free gondola shuttle (which was a huge bus!). We were then bused up to Banff Gondola where we had to queue for tickets. Here when you buy your tickets, you are given a time to go up the gondola and a time to come down. You can pay to stay up longer or if you think an hour and half is too long, you can arrange to come down earlier. Our time to go up was 11:20am, an hour and a bit to kill before going up. Time to grab a coffee and have a look in the gift shop! At around 11am, we were just standing around the entrance to the gondolas, when the lady asked us what time were our tickets. We told her and she say, "oh, come on through now, as a tour group for 11am hasn't turned up"! Cool, so we got to go up 20 minutes early.
The ride up was spectacular! It was only a four seat gondola, so was quite small. It was a steep ride up though! Once up there you arrive on the lower level of the visitors centre there. (There are four levels.) We made our way up to the top level for the views out over the mountains and Banff. There was also a walk up to a station, which we decided to do. There were just people everywhere! Again, the views were just spectacular and you just can't seem to get enough of them!
After looking around the centre, it was time for us to head back down in the gondola. We lined up outside the building, only to get inside and find there was another maze of waiting line! Just like at Disneyland!! When we finally got the front and into the gondola, we got the obligatory gondola photo!
On our return to the bottom of Sulphur Mountain, we caught the free shuttle back to town. Once back in town we walked down the Main Street and looked at all the shops. There were so many gift and souvenir shops, but still quite a novelty to look at. While halfway down Banff Avenue, there was a Royal Canadian Mounted Police on horses parade down the street. Beautiful horses and so calm considering all the people about.
After finally doing all the shops and going for a walk down by the Bow River, we then decided to go to Johnston Canyon. We had to park on the roadside at this, about a 5 minute walk to the entrance, as we could not get a park in the parking lot. Once we reached the entrance to the canyon walk, we decided we would only go as far as the lower falls, as there were so many people (like everywhere else!), plus it took an hour to get to the upper falls and it was starting to spit. Parts of the trail were really skinny and some people had even taken up strollers and were walking side by side, which was virtually impossible to pass going the other way. It was amazing how some people just didn't seem to care about other people trying to do the same thing as them. We finally made it to the lower falls to find there was a 'queue' on the bridge, but what this queue was for we didn't stay to find out, as it was just so hectic there. We finally turned around and went back down the way we came. This canyon was not as spectacular as Maligne Canyon and all the people didn't seem to make it a great experience, but still, glad we saw the lower falls.
We then decided to go out for dinner in Canmore. Kelsi found a place online called The Tavern, which served NZ Lamb burgers! We decided to go there. When we finally found it, there was a waiting time of 30-45mins. We decided we would wait and have a drink at the bar. When we finally got served at the bar (3 cocktails and 1 beer!), we were called for our table, so the wait wasn't that long at all. In the end Kelsi had the chickens sandwich, Cameron the Black Bean burger and Grant and I had the Tavern Burger. All with chips and tomato sauce and very yummy!
After dinner we headed back to our unit at Harvie Heights. We a good day out and great to see all the sights.
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