Category: Enjoying life right now. (Page 2 of 19)

Here’s my wonky attempt at showing you the view from our balcony this morning. We were all set to have a seafood feast at Ketchikan this morning, so we elected to have Ruby bring breakfast to our cabin this morning.

Having a butler is turning out to be quite handy.

While we were waiting with many others for our tour to be called, I started talking to an English woman called Suze. This is her 18th Silver Seas cruise.

Can you imagine?

She says she likes to go on 3 or 4 cruises a year, plus she tries to fit in a land tour. She’s been doing this all her life. She’s in her mid 70’s now and a knee replacement is trying its best to slow her down, but she’s having none of it.

“I’m booked to the end of 2027,” she said. “After that, I’ll probably slow down a bit.”

Oof. I thought I was pretty swish, booking myself to the end of September 2025. Clearly, I’ll have to lift my game!

Ketchikan usually has a population of around 9,000, but in summer the cruise ships hit town. The Silver Muse has around 500 passengers, which seems big to me. But 4 other cruise ships were docking at Ketchikan this morning – this monster has over 5,000 passengers!

It looks like a wall! This town was crowded…

Ketchikan has a lot of these huge steps that have been here so long – before the actual streets were built – that they also have street names. This one is Elliot street.

Imagine hauling your groceries all the way up here?

The fishing village was down a long, steep walk to the dock.

Look at how sparkling this water is. There’s a 20-foot difference between the tides.

It was a 25-minute boat ride to where the feast was going to be held. We saw some stunning scenery.

A lot of shrimp (prawn) hunting goes on here. One of the unwritten laws is that if you are fishing, you’re hungry and you need to eat something, you can pull up someone else’s shrimp pit and have a feed. You have to re-bait it and put it back, along with a 6-pack of beer as a thank-you.

We also saw this Bald Eagle swoop down to get a fish that our guide threw into the water. This happened 3 times and I was able to see them all. The way the eagle stretches out his white legs to grab the fish just before he hits the water was something to see.

It was spectacular!

The guide said that for every mile of coastline there’s a pair of eagles.

This is the view from the dock as we walked up from our boat.

They also farm oysters here. They don’t grow in Alaska naturally. The oyster farmers have to bring them in as ‘seedlings’ or very young oysters. The water is so cold for them here, so they grow large and fatty, which some people prefer.

There are quite a few chainsaw sculptures here at the lodge This was the first one.

The story is that a guy visited the fishing shack and asked if they had any timber that he could use to make some art. They said, “We have a few trees out the back!”

In exchange for his art, he was able to come and fish whenever he wanted.

There were people in the restaurant, so we went on a ‘nature walk’ behind the buildings. This was code for a short boardwalk.

The ground was a quagmire. The guide said that there were deer here, but I couldn’t see how they’d be able to walk.

Moss hung from nearly every tree. I wondered if the trees wanted to shake their branches free of the encroaching weight of it.

This tree is the 4th biggest Red Cedar in the world. It’s on the fishing lodge’s 5 acres, so they officially own it.

A hummingbird buzzed Megan’s face. I’m so envious. I still haven’t seen one.

I don’t see why Americans are so patriotic.

I think that you can feel love for your country without needing to make a huge display of it.

More taxidermy.

He was over a handwashing station, which I was glad to use later on.

We were told that this was a “Southern Style” feast, which meant nothing to me.

I should’ve taken more notice of the tablecloth of newspapers.

Yep. She just tipped out the whole lot in the middle of the table. Megan found my reaction very funny. I leapt back and said, “Jesus!”

I soon grabbed the crab-claw cutters and got stuck in.

Everything was fresh and delicious.

There wasn’t much left by the time we finished. We talked to one of the workers and she said that she often takes the leftovers home.

“We get a bit sick of crab claws, mussels and shrimp, but the neighbours love us if we make a big seafood bake and ask them around to help us eat it!”

OK, so the guide was right and I was wrong.

Here’s a deer.

I’ve seen many a movie where the actors loll around on these benches screwed to the roof. I had to have a go.

It was surprisingly comfortable. I wonder if I could do this on MY verandah?

We sped back to the dock. Megan, not the best traveller, sat at the back with her eyes on the horizon.

I sat at the front and enjoyed every bump. But seriously, it seemed like a bit of a risk. Pump everyone full of seafood and warm chocolate-ship cookies and then give them a rollercoaster ride back?

We had a very funny, very camp driver on the way back to Ketchikan. He was halfway through an Indigenous legend about how the world began when suddenly we all yelled, “BEAR!”

He slammed on the brakes as a teenage bear ran out on the road, made as if to double-back, then changed his mind and ran across the road to disappear in the foliage. It happened so fast that no one had a chance to grab a photo.

“Hmmm, lucky I stopped,” said the driver. That bear was lucky that he didn’t end up sprawled all over the windscreen.

Ok, I bought a souvenir here. It’s a small piece of white quartz with some gold running through it.

It’s a useful souvenir because I could wear it every day and it’ll go with anything. I stand by my shopping choices.

The mountains hug this town. It’s so odd to think that behind these buildings are bears and wolves.

Every single thing the people here need to support life comes in via barge.

Even babushka dolls. There’s a shop full of them. I took this photo for Scott since it reminded me of when we went shopping for them in Lincoln.

Imagine living over this tunnel?

As we walked closer to the dock, I liked the house on the top of the hill, but I also liked the trio of blue hats so close together.

Got them all in the one shot!

You’ve got to be careful of the wildlife here.

Our tender boat to get back to the Silver Muse took ages to dock.

“it’s because he’s being watched by the captain!” said someone.

I looked to my right and sure enough, our captain was there. He eventually had had enough, grabbed a rope and helped the guy on the dock bring the tender in.

We dressed up a bit and went for dinner at the same restaurant I went to the night before. It was only a ‘smart, elegant’ night on the calendar.

Now that we’re in the inside passage, Megan has her equilibrium back and we’re ready for more. Someone said to us that there are more animal sightings the further North we go, so that’ll be exciting.

Dad joke of the day:

Our reconnaissance mission two days ago went as planned. Our taxi driver took us straight through to the Silver Seas check-in.

Here’s our ship – the Silver Muse. We sat and watched her as we drank coffee, waiting for the check-in to open at 12.

There were lots of kids walking around with Didney t-shirts and Mickey Mouse ears. I was scared that they were going to be on our cruise until I saw the huge Disney cruise ship. Thank god.

A sniffer dog, making sure that no contraband was going aboard. Good girl!

On one of our last nights on the Canada tour, we had dinner with the couple who’d been chased by the bear at Whistler. She’s a travel agent, so they’ve been on many cruises. When we were going with Silver Seas, she said, “Wow! That’s impressive!”

Her husband, a ‘try hard’ with a large, expensive watch that he flashed everywhere, said, “What? Better than what? The cruises we’ve been on?”
“Yes,” she said.

“Better than the Queen Mary?”

“YES, ” she said.

He was very put out that we’d upstaged him, even if it was totally unintentional on our part!

I wasn’t all that hungry, but when we were presented with a smorgasbord, all sense went out the window. I had sushi and roast goose.

Goose! Like a medieval princess.

We struck a slight snag when we opened the door to our suite. There was a lovely Queen-sized bed there.

Megan and I don’t cuddle.

Fortunately, Megan called our Ruby, our butler and soon a nice steward came with armfuls of bedding and turned it into two singles.

Goodbye Canada!

It was so much fun seeing you.

The next day was the first sailing day we had on this cruise. Thank goodness! I can catch up on the blog posts.

It turns out that Megan suffers from seasickness, so she spent much of the afternoon sleeping, while I had a mixture of exploring the ship and catching up here. I always feel so much better when my blog posts are up-to-date.

When we walked into breakfast, it was just past 9 AM. I’d already been productive, having read 100+ pages of a young adult novel while waiting for Megan to wake up, so I was already feeling good.

Delphine, our server, led us into a side room from the buffet with sweeping views of the vista outside. I was sure this would be just the thing to aid digestion, so I sat down, ordered an Americano and raced out to see what was on offer at the buffet.

The service on this ship is amazing. There are wall-to-wall people waiting to get you a drink, bring you some food and pretty much anything else you want. But no contraband – remember the sniffer dog from yesterday? Luckily, I was born to be straight.

We walked around the top deck of the boar for a while. There was an empty pool and a few other brave souls taking photos.

When we went to a smaller place for lunch, there were 5 servers for the 11 customers in the place. Crazy. They were desperate to do something for us, especially because a big proportion of the passengers were feeling sick and weren’t around.

Naturally, I had to help them out by ordering a morsel of food and a couple of glasses of bubbly.

I’m worried I might get used to this level of service. I’m going back on the Hondius in September next year. That’s the same ship that I went to Antarctica in. I hope I’m not wistfully looking around for my butler!

After lunch, Megan fell asleep. Deeply asleep.

I stayed for a while in the room, then when I finished blogging I had a quick nanna nap. Daytime drinkies do that to me.

Then I got up and walked the ship.

It wasn’t too cold outside. I was wearing the famous Grey Dress, 1 merino top and my cowl and I was plenty warm enough.

Every bar I walked into from the deck had a wall of warm air hit me as I came in.

I saw a lemon tart. I decided I needed to replenish my strength.

Georgia rang as I was sitting on the back deck, gazing contemplatively at the sea. She sounds so much brighter now that the worry of Poppy has been dealt with. She’s submitted all of her uni assignments and is going through all of her “change of name and gender” stuff, now that she has her new birth certificate.

She held the phone up so the dogs could hear me. Scout got very excited, especially when I asked, “Are you Mummy’s baby?”

Jeff is very clingy, Georgia said. Poor little man. He’s never been apart from Poppy before.

But I’m so glad that Georgia sounds back to her old self.

After a while, I went back to the room.

Megan was awake and had booked herself a massage. I realised that it was “formal night” tonight, so I’d better iron all my linen clothes.

Here I am, with clothes as wrinkle-free as linen is ever likely to get. (I had to go down 4 floors before I found a working iron…)

Megan wasn’t up for dinner, and I wasn’t about to waste all that ironing! So I dressed in the outfit I wore to David31 and Izzy’s wedding and swept myself off to crash the captain’s cocktail party.

I was given a Cosmopolitan as I walked through the door, and I sat with some lovely people from England. It was a bit of fun.

It was hungry work though, so I decided to see if I could find a nice place to eat. The buffet on level 7 is always available if this plan didn’t work out.

I found a place at a restaurant called ‘Indochine’ which was complimentary. I was given a table beside a window and the waiter and I conferred solemnly about every choice I made.

The meal started with a free cocktail – don’t mind if I do! – and wine was paired with each course.

The crême brulee was paired with chilled limoncello… naturally, darling.

I chatted with a few people seated near me, but mostly I stared out of the window and the magnificent view that changed every minute, sometimes thinking of my Poppy. I let the realisation sink in that I was actually on a luxury ship cruising in Alaska.

Tomorrow I set foot on American soil for the first time. It’s funny that I chose Alaska to be my US introduction. It’s not everyone’s first choice!

After dinner I didn’t feel like going back to the cabin just yet, so I went to a show.

Rachel York has played Fantine on Broadway, has worked with Julie Andrews and lots of other way famous people. I knew that Izzy and Jenna would love to see her sing, so I took a few sneaky vids that the ship won’t let me send to them because they’re too big.

She has a good set of lungs on her. Most of her show has her imitating famous singers like Streisand, Parton, and Andrews. She’s very good at it. She’s also VERY enthusiastic, which in a small venue is a little off-putting. I felt like asking her to tone it down a little.

Still, it was a great way to spend the evening.

When I got back Megan was watching James Bond in her pjs. Her massage, some beer and the (now) gentle rocking of the boat had all done the trick and she was feeling much better.

Let’s see what Alaska has to offer tomorrow!

Dad joke of the first day:

Dad joke for the second day:

It’s always lovely meeting up with blog readers. We’re guaranteed to like each other – because why read the blog of someone you dislike? – and we can jump straight into conversations without much of that ‘getting to know you’ stuff.

At least on their side. As it happens, most of the people I’ve met up with from the blog are people who have NEVER COMMENTED!! They simply pop up when I mention I’ll be travelling in their area. (I’m looking at you, Deana, Loretta and Martha… haha!)

Here we are, posing at the bird sanctuary Martha and her husband John took us to. I think you can all tell who the Canadian is in the photo. Coat casually unzipped. Meanwhile, Megan and I were rugged up to the eyeballs.

Canadians are made of sterner stuff than Australians.

The sanctuary takes in injured birds and, if possible, rehabilitates them to be released out into the wild. Some birds, though, are too badly hurt and have to live their lives in big outdoor aviaries.

Big Daddy, was brought here in 1992. He’s a Bald Eagle who flew into power lines and had one wing amputated after he was electrocuted.

He has a partner, but at the moment she’s off in another cage, fostering new eagle babies and teaching them that they’re birds, not humans. She’ll be back once the new babies have flown the coop.

 After the group had moved down to cages further down the row, John, Martha’s husband, called us back.

“I think Big Daddy wants some more attention!” he said.

Our guide said that over 80% of birds of prey don’t live past their first year.

Yikes.

But in captivity, things are different. I’m not sure how I feel about this poor old thing:

Blinky has been here since 1983. They think that he’s about 45 years old.

He’s completely blind and deaf, though he can sense vibrations around him. Due to this, he’s hand-fed.

He’s usually with another owl who takes care of him, but she’s in another cage fostering real babies. When she finishes with that, she’ll be back to keep him company.

Cessna was hit by a plane, while Connie was confiscated from someone who had her in a parrot cage in their lounge room for 12 years. Imagine what an awful life that would have been for her?

They were put together and they decided that life was for the living. They’ve had babies.

There used to be two females here called Laverne and Shirley, but Shirley exhibited an unexpected aptitude for flying, so she was released two weeks ago and they put young Squizzy in here to keep Laverne company.

Snowy owls can eat more than 1,600 lemmings a year.

Interesting fact.

They sure like their taxidermy in this country!

After the aviaries, there was an indoor museum.

A happy woodland scene…

… in which this owl was NOT happy about spending eternity.

Martha – who is an absolute powerhouse! – and John drove us to Granville Island. Remember we were there for a little while on the first day of the coach tour? This time, we were back to look at the Art.

Two things stopped me from buying this exuberant bust for almost 1K… the fact that I’d just spent $2,200 at the emergency vet for Poppy, and the fact that it was stone and weighed a tonne.

There was a blacksmith there who had incredible things for sale. I loved so many of them, but they were either too big or too expensive.

Damn.

Martha took us for a walk along the wharves, where we could see some of the beautiful buildings that Vancouver has.

I was able to get wifi on GranvilleIsland, and that when Georgia told me that our vet was hopeful that Poppy may have Addison’s Disease. He gave her an injection of a hormone that would make her appear much better in only a few hours, if that was the case. I spent most of today crossing my fingers and feeling hopeful. All of her symptoms matched the ones for Addisons.

Meanwhile, we talked and talked and talked. Here’s an action shot:

Look at these BROOMS!!!! Martha has a broom from here.

Aren’t they amazing? I didn’t get one because they’d never get through customs, but they were amazing – and the people who make them were busy at the back of the shop, making more.

I told Megan one of the steroid seagulls from Canada was behind her. It’s a scary thought!

We all caught a bus to the mainland and we said goodbye to Martha at the end of the day. When we walked back to the room and had dinner, I received a phone call from Georgia, saying that the injection hadn’t worked and Poppy was crashing again. She was calling it, and I agreed. Later that day, they were heading in for the Green Dream.

Poppy was in her bed, with her nose in the top I’d worn the last day I was home. Georgia had fished it out from the washing and given it to her.

Jordan came around to be with Georgia. By the time he drove over there, Georgia had already dug Poppy’s grave, right where I wanted it.

I waited for the phone call. It came at 2 AM Vancouver time.

Poppy was gone. She had a peaceful death with Georgia and Jordan at her side.

They did everything for Poppy exactly as I would have done it. I’m so proud of them. She was given the dignified, painless death she deserved.

I stayed up for a while. Then I snuck into bed without waking Megan.

The cruise starts tomorrow.

We were on the bus, about to leave the hotel in Victoria when the first messages from Georgia came through.

“Mum.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Poppy just had a seizure. I’m taking her to the emergency vet.”

It was the middle of the night in Australian time. The rest of the day was a nightmare of me searching for wifi and Megan relaying messages between us. She has roaming.

The wifi experiment is a big NO. I’m never doing this again. Plus the time zones were a nightmare, with Canada being 17 hours behind Melbourne time. There were very few hours where it was instantaneous to communicate.

The coach dropped us off at the hotel we originally stayed in, but our paperwork told us that we were booked in to the other Sandman hotel downtown.

A $20 taxi ride there – only to be told that our paperwork was wrong and we had to go back to where we started. Terrific. A $20 taxi ride back.

After all of that was sorted out, we sat in the room. I was beside myself with worry about Poppy and was checking my messages all the time for anything new from Georgia.

At the same time, this was a day in an overseas city. We needed to get out and about, for Megan’s sake. She was chilled, but I knew it wasn’t fair. So we decided to go to Canada Place and see where we’d be getting dropped off for the cruise in two day’s time.

I had enough anxiety about Poppy going on – I didn’t need any anxiety over the next stage of our trip to be hanging around as well! So we went for a walk.

Vancouver is filled with a lot of trees, like Melbourne. They have leaves imprinted into the footpaths, but they’re only under where trees are planted. I loved it.

Megan photobombed the shot of the sculptures.

We went down and made sure we knew where we’d be going on Monday. It looked idiot-proof.

This was reassuring.

Look at the size of this frog!

The wharf has lots of these boards documenting quirky stories about Canada. We walked slowly along the boards, taking them in and looking at the ships that were docked.

An overly large ship pulled away, music BLARING and a try-hard guy on the microphone urging everyone to “Get excited!!!”

I hope our cruise isn’t like this…

Later that night, Georgia sent me this picture of Poppy and Jeff at home, snuggled up in my dressing gown. It’s the second-last photo I have of her. I didn’t know that then.

This is the hallway of our hotel in Victoria, Vancouver Island. If twin girls holding hands suddenly appeared at the other end, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

I spent most of the morning catching up with the blog, leaving the room just as I received an ecstatic message from Megan, who had gone on a whale-watching excursion: “We saw 22 Orcas!!!”

Wow.

As I was walking along the foreshore, bells rang out from a nearby Cathedral. They sounded absolutely beautiful. It was 1 o’clock on the dot and yes, it reminded me of the church bells ringing over from Kent when Deana, Kathleen and I were walking along the shore in Essex almost a year ago. 

I was wandering around, trying to find where I could book a water taxi to have a look at the harbour when I bumped into Bob, the man on the left.

He instantly became my new best friend. When he asked if I wanted to have a look at the yachts in the harbour, of course, I said yes.

There was a huge race due to start tomorrow, so the regular boats were booted off and the racing yachts were all crammed in, getting ready for the big day.

This one was beautiful. It was a wooden boat and the man had owned it for 25 years.

“She was left tied up in a yard and allowed to fill with rainwater for I don’t know how many years,” he said. “This was when we were able to afford her.”

He restored her and re-varnishes her every year. It’s a labour of love.

The people here venerate the wooden boats. It’s almost like they’re the ‘real’ boats.

Here’s another one. She’s called Martha.

She’s her own Foundation. She’s here to allow kids who otherwise couldn’t afford to sail to have the chance to get into it.

The next 3 photos are educational. Bob used the example of a ‘block’ to show me the differences between the yachts.

Martha is an old boat, so she has the original blocks, which are made of wood. Very heavy.

The more modern ones are made of metal alloys and are hollow, which makes them lighter.

Then he pointed.

“This yacht here is called Smoke,” he said. “She’s one of the fastest boats on the water. See what they’ve done here? They’ve just screwed the whole thing into the deck. Much lighter.

“This is a real racing yacht. On my yacht, I have a stove on gimbals with 3 burners. I’ll bet all they have is a propane flame. It’s all about conserving weight.”

This girl was doing some work on board. I asked her about the stove and she invited me to come aboard.

Bob’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

He’s no fool, though. He scrambled aboard after me.

Chrissie led me below decks.

NOTHING was there that didn’t need to be. She also said that weight was the most important thing.

Bob was pretty much right. There was a flame to make water hot, but that was it.

Bunks.

The loo is a new addition. No walls, so, as Chrissie said, “You squat there and hope that no one comes down, but if they do… bad luck!”

Here’s the bottom of the mast, screwed into the bottom of the deck.

And here’s the whole thing.

I asked Chrissie who owns Smoke and she said, “Oh, my father!”

She and Bob got into a conversation where it was all about racing experiences.

“The worst thing, Chrissie said, “is when she tops over and the mast is in the water and it’s 3 AM and pitch black. The crew is calling for me to ‘find a lull” and I can’t find anything anywhere!”

It was an impressive racing yacht, but of course, most of the details went right over my head. It was a glimpse into another world, and I love having experiences like this.

When we walked away, Bob leaned close to me and said, “She’s the Skipper over that crew and she’s very good.”

(I just looked up the results of the race and unfortunately Smoke didn’t finish.)

We walked around a little more, then we said our goodbyes and I booked a seat on the next water taxi, leaving in 40 minutes.

The actual water taxi tour was a bit dull, to tell you the truth, but the captain told an interesting story about the statue on top of their Houses of Parliament.

“You’d expect the statue to be one of Queen Victoria,” he said, “But it’s actually George Vancouver. A while ago, they brought his statue down for cleaning and discovered that his left foot was completely missing. It had rusted clean away. So they took a cast of his other foot and repaired it. So there he is, standing there on two right feet. He’s no good at dancing anymore!”

This waterside restaurant is shaped like a whale’s tail.

These birdhouses on top of the logs are there to encourage the Purple Martens to stay. 

They’re migratory birds who will eat their weight in mosquitoes every day. I’d encourage them to stick around too!

Seaplanes are allowed to land in the harbour and the boats and planes have it all worked out. Whoever has their lights flashing is cleared to go.

There’s an air and water traffic control tower to keep everyone apart from each other.

As I said before, the harbour cruise was a bit boring but I’m so glad I got off at Fishermans wharf.

It is beautiful, so quirky, with all of the floating houses.

Every single floating house is a different colour and has different things around it.

Some of them are very welcoming, with flowers and everything. Others are obviously sick of people like me, milling about outside. Well,  I didn’t try and peep into any windows but apparently, some people do. Some of the houses had lots of ‘keep out’ signs and stuff like that, which I can quite understand.

I bought this pendant at a shop at the edge of the village.

It was fan fucking tastic! The bold use of colour was the best.

I was wandering around and I had two Aldi nut bars for lunch. I thought, ‘It’s not wine o’clock yet, but I just like the idea of sitting down, having a glass of wine and looking out over the water.’

Dammit! I’m going to do it.

I said to the girl who served me that I used to have that hairdo. As you could see she’s bald.

She said, “I have alopecia. I’ve got this haircut all the time.”

Anyway we chatted for a little while. She was so much fun! She got a hefty tip.

As I’m sitting here talking into my phone, it’s 4:15 in the afternoon. The sky is grey. There’s a light wind blowing and the water is a deep colour. People are talking all around me but I’m simply sitting here, sipping my wine and enjoying peace and quiet.

Beautiful bright houses are all around me, bright yellow water taxis are coming in. It’s a pretty nice way to spend an afternoon.

This day has been unexpectedly full of boats. I’ve learned more about racing yachts than I ever thought possible and have been so lucky to set foot into the fastest yacht of them all. What a day!

It’s been really lovely. Just quiet and peaceful and learning about new things and seeing new things. It’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it?

Dad joke of the day:

Today was a free day in Whistler. Both Megan and I had elected to do different activities in the morning. I did zip lining; she did a tree top walk. I raced out to the room first, then realised about an hour later that we hadn’t organised a time to meet up afterwards.

‘Oh well, too late now,’ I thought. ‘If we meet up, we meet up. If not, we’ll just share our adventure stories at the end of the day.’

The zip lining was a series of 4 zip lines, each getting longer. It was fun, but of course the actual time on the lines was all too short.

The scenery was great, though.

Here’s me, just to prove that I actually did it.

The lines all went over this river. As it turned out, Megan was down below one of the lines and saw us all fly merrily by over her.

Now, I know this bird looks like it’s a fake, but I promise you it isn’t. It’s called a Stellar Jay. I’ve read about blue Jays all my life, but I had no idea they were THIS blue!

We all had lunch together at the Irish pub when we got back to town, then I decided to go and see the Lost Lake, a place one of the zip-lining guys told me about.

I took the free shuttle bus from the town, then walked the last little bit.

There were a few other people on the path.

Look up!

Here it is.

Found.

The river that I was zip-lining over this morning drains into this lake.

I stayed here for about fifteen minutes, then headed back into town, walking with a nice American family for a little while.

I waited at the bus stop, but it was taking SO LONG. So I decided to walk back into town beside the golf course.

I’m pretty sure this is bear poo.

I was unconcerned and snapped a picture. The next day, I discovered that the bear near the gold course had charged at a couple from our tour. I should probably have been a bit more cautious about walking alone.

I got back to town and decided that I might as well take a gondola ride up Black Comb Mountain. I was a tiny bit outraged at the cost – $75. But my mantra of “You only have to do it once” kicked in and I paid.

When I asked how to get there, I was told that I needed to take the bus again. I walked up the steps and down the steps (again). I went back to the number 5 bus stop, threw my jumper and drink bottle down on the seat and let out a loud sigh as I sat down.

An American couple walking past laughed and the man said, “ That was heartfelt!”

Yes, I was getting tired.

Black Comb Mountain is named because the top looks like a rooster’s comb.

Another tourist I talked to told me that she had seen a bear from the gondola on the left-hand side. I kept my eyes peeled but saw nothing.

The gondola rose and rose. I could see the snow line slowly getting closer. I saw a building and gathered my things together, ready to get off.

Really? I was happy for this to be the height of the ride.

As we rose higher and higher still, my annoyance at the $75 fee quickly wore off. This was a big gondola. Surely the view would be worth it.

I started to hear wind whistling, so I did up my Antarctica windbreaker. I decided that before I did anything else, I’d duck into the café and buy an icecream, just like I did in Santiago a couple of years earlier, and The Great Wall a few years before that. (I enjoyed reading the Great Wall post. It brought back memories.)

Every time I use a gondola – I must have an icecream!

It’s my new travel tradition.

Fortunate Frogdancer scored a free icecream! This is a new flavour, especially commissioned for the mountain. I was the first tourist to try it – for free in exchange for an honest review. It was nice, but I wouldn’t book a plane trip from Australia just to try it.

I sat next to a window overlooking the mountains, eating the ice cream and staring at the view.

As I was sitting gazing over the Rocky Mountains I had a Moment. I was just really emotional thinking that it was so crazy that I was actually here – just me, Frogdancer Jones. Then as I was looking at the snow glinting on the mountain tops with the blue sky behind them, the Beatles came over the sound system with “Here Comes The Sun.”

It was perfect.

I’m actually dictating this paragraph on my phone and I’m seriously choked up. I nearly didn’t do this gondola ride and I’m very glad that I changed my mind. This is one of those special moments, as I’m gazing across all of these mountains stretched out before me.

It’s one of those moments I’ll never forget. 

And makes me feel so humble and at the same time so glad that I’m here. I really, really don’t understand people who don’t want to travel.

I walked to the side window and chatted with a couple of women from England. The mountains stretching off into the distance were stunning from every angle.

After I’d delivered my honest review, I went outside to see if I could get a better photo. The wind was picking up, so it was a bit chilly, but the views more than made up for it.

When I was out there, an Irish girl asked if I’d take a photo of her and her mum. We got to talking, as you do, and it turns out that her mum also had 4 kids, is divorced and is only now starting to travel.

Her daughter has been living in Calgary for the past 18 months.

She was saying that in Calgary last winter was the coldest she’d ever experienced. It got down to -46C, and she said she went outside with her hair wet. It froze in icicles and you can break it off.

“Nobody warned me that when you go out and your eyes tear up from the cold, your eyes can freeze shut. Snot freezes in your nose and the next day after I went walking around I had all these little tiny red spots on my face which turned out to be frostbite, or frostburn anyway. Nobody warned me!”

They were absolutely lovely. We stood out in the wind talking away until common sense prevailed. We went onto the deck out of the wind and kept nattering away.

Another similarity is that the mother and I both bought ourselves almost the exact same emerald ring. Hers, on the right, is more impressive than mine, but mine was bought in a far more exotic place. Thailand. 🙂

Anyway, we had a lovely chat for about 20 minutes. Travellers are great because we all just have a zest for seeing things and doing things. We’re like kindred spirits. It doesn’t matter what age you are or where you’re from – we’re happy to have a chat and swap experiences.

I’m so glad I took this tour up the mountain on the gondola. I so very nearly didn’t and I would’ve been just wandering around the streets of Whistler looking at shops. I’ve had a Moment and I’ve met some really lovely people.

Again, the photo doesn’t do it justice.

The icecream alone may not be worth jumping on a plane and coming over, but this view certainly is!

I was waiting to get back onto the gondola to go back down. I was savouring every last second of the mountains. I was eye-level with the ring of mountains behind the town and it was beautiful.

Back down the mountain!

My last eye-level view of the mountain tops.

See the flag on top of the fire hydrant? This is so when it’s snowed under, the fireman can see where it is under all the snow.

It’s difficult to imagine everything being covered with snow to that extent.

When I got back to my hotel, there were some people in the vodka room I told you about yesterday. I took a quick snap on my to the lift.

When I got there, Megan was back and we talked about our days and then had dinner with a dull couple from the tour.

Since being in Canada, Megan and I have become invested in ‘Jeopardy Grand Masters’ and tonight was the Grand Final. We made sure we were back in time to see it.

Tomorrow – back towards Vancouver!

Dad joke of the day:

As the bus set off from Jasper in the morning, Sharon passed down some maple cookies. We all took one from the pack and passed them down. After we’d all eaten them, she chirpily said, “These aren’t the best cookies. These ones were on sale!”

We drove through the town of Cache Creek. This was named after a guy who was a prospector who was in the tavern and was boasting about the cache of gold that he had hidden in the creek.

That night he was murdered and nobody has ever found his gold.

Hat Creek Ranch was out first stop and is very set up for tourists. It was once a historic place but it now has a very much ‘milk ’em for all they’ve got ‘ kind of vibe. There was a miscommunication between Sharon and the operators of this place, because they obviously weren’t expecting any visitors when the bus rolled up. A woman hurriedly manned the gift shop, while the rest of us milled around, uncomfortably aware that the promised coffees weren’t going to be forthcoming.

I wasn’t happy. The one coffee of the day that I make each morning in the Aeropress has clearly sunk its teeth into me far deeper than I realised!

Of course, I had to go and have a look at the covered wagon that was right at the front of the property, being such a huge Laura Ingalls Wilder fan. I was only there for about 3 minutes and then Sharon called out, “Quick, back to the bus! We’re stopping off for coffee!”

I thought yeah, I want a coffee so I have absolutely no problem with that!

I snapped a quick look at the inside of the wagon and honestly, imagining closing up your house and all your belongings, putting them in a wagon and just going…?

It would’ve been pretty hard.

Horstings Farm was the place we went to after the dude ranch place was a bust. It was fantastic. In fact, I think Sharon should ditch the dude ranch and take people to this place instead.

We were all queued up for coffee, then Mike, our bus driver, wandered over with half a dozen jam jars in his basket.
I always git my jams from here,” he said.

So much fresh produce. Look at this asparagus!

I’ve been trying to grow asparagus for the last 3 or 4 years but it hasn’t taken off. I think I have asparagus envy.

If I lived here, I’d be at this shop all the time.

A while later, we drove beside a river that looked like the Yarra.

An early explorer said it was” too thick to drink and too thin to plough!”

Lillooet is a little mining village where we stopped for lunch.

Sharon told the story about how 3 entrepreneurs thought they could make their fortunes by importing camels to work the trails, rather than horses or donkeys, because they could go much longer distances, survive longer without water and food, and carry more weight for the prospectors. They thought they’d be able to rent out their camels and make their fortune and expected to make about $60,000. That was their projection.

They didn’t realise that camels have soft feet and their soft padded feet were getting torn to shred on the rocks of the trails. Not only that, camels can be awfully ‘ornery’ and they said if they weren’t spitting at the prospectors or everyone else, then they were trying to rip the shirts from their backs.

So this business investment went belly up and the camels were set loose and, unlike Australia’s feral camels, they didn’t survive the harsh conditions. There was one lady camel that lived to about the age of 25 just as a curiosity in somebody’s yard but other than that the other ones just vanished and never reproduced and that was the end of Canada’s camels.

Years, later, when they were thinking of naming their new bridge that goes over the river into the town, they had a contest for someone to find a name for the bridge and the one that was chosen was the ‘Bridge of the 23 Camels.’

Margaret Murray was born in Kansas 1880. She was from a poor family, and she only received a third grade education.

When she and her sister were teenagers, they worked in a saddlery in Kansas City. They were shipping the saddles to Calgary where the Calgary stampede takes place. Both Margaret and her sister wanted to marry a cowboy so they would leave little notes with their contact Information in the packaging of the saddles to titillate the Cowboys who were purchasing them. This didn’t work so well, so they decided If they ever wanted to meet their cowboys, they had to move up to where they were.

They made their way up to Washington state where her sister met and married someone. 

Margaret continued on into Columbia and she was working her way until she made it to Calgary. That’s where she startedworking in the office of the local newspaper.

The owner was a very well-educated man called William Murray. After a year or so she decided to leave because she had to find her cowboy.

Even though she was really rough around the edges, when she gave her notice to leave, William Murray, the educated man, proposed to her. Soon after this,  they left to settle in Lillooet and run the newspaper there.

Margaret, (or ‘Ma Murphy’ as she was known by), in the early 1900’s was well known for her open door policy. At any time, if you wanted to talk to her about what was right or what was wrong with the government you could walk right in.

Margaret was very opinionated. She had her own column and she let fly with whatever she wanted to write about.

Her spelling was atrocious and she never tried to fix it. She also used expressions that were less than polite. Often, after she had given her opinion about whatever she was writing about, she’d finish with the phrase “And that’s for damshur!”

She was a colourful character in this area. Her husband decided to go into politics and become a member of Parliament and she was his strong advocate.

Her campaign slogan for her husband was “Just like underwear, you need to change politicians every once in a while.”

That was her slogan – he did get elected the first time but then they thought because of her roughness she wasn’t really set out to be a politician or member of Parliament’s wife. So he only had the one term as an MP.

She lived a full life in Lillooet, even getting the Order of Canada by the Prime Minister in her later years.

Here’s the frock she was wearing at the time. The local museum has a section devoted to her, which is where I found all of this.

Late in the afternoon, as we drove past Seton Lake, we heard that it has 8 trains in it, as they kept falling in over the edge. To be fair, it’s a glacial lake, so the sides were pretty steep.

“BEAR! LEFT SIDE OF THE BUS!”

Hooray! That was my side and I was sitting by the window.

We were so close!

I love the reflection in the water!

We were listening to Canadian music while we drove through all of this wonderful scenery. It was unexpectedly pleasant.

Naturally, my favourite singer of all time, k.d.lang, was there.

And then in the late afternoon, we arrived in Whistler. Tulips are planted everywhere. It’s delightful.

Our hotel has an ice room, where people get handed warm coats and they go in and drink vodka at -32C.

Apparently, vodka tastes smooth in these temperatures.

Am I a vodka drinker?

No.

So we won’t be doing it. But it’s crazy to think that such a thing is right here in this hotel!

After we unpacked, Megan and I went out to look for dinner.

Whistler looks like a pretty little town.

We walked around both before and after dinner, getting our bearings.

The town seems to fold in on itself. It has a little park in the middle where these trees are.

Also a teepee.

And some smaller yellow chairs than yesterday.

Dad joke of the day:

Here is the tallest mountain in the Rockies – Mt Robson. We were pretty lucky to see as much of it as we did. but the top was shrouded in clouds.

I didn’t mind that. It makes the height of the mountain more mysterious.

Have you noticed the person in blue standing in the field?

Remember how I learned to take panoramas a couple of days ago? Here’s my attempt at Mt Robson. It’s a pity I failed to notice Megan’s water bottle in the bottom left…

This was our longest driving day of the tour, with our destination at the end being a ski lodge called Sun Peaks. Here are a few of the shots I took while we were driving.

Honestly, the scenery is spectacular.

Sharon told us this story as we were driving along:

A man was out hiking when he rounded a corner and came face to face with a bear.

The bear reared up and grunted “Woosh!!”

The man covered his face with his hands. The bear covered his own face with his hands.

The man scratched behind his ear. The bear scratched behind his own ear.

The man lifted a leg.

So did the bear. 

As the man watched the bear in astonishment, the bear turned around and did a bowel movement. 

The guy looked at the bear and said, “Oh, I already did that when you said ‘Woosh!’”

Suddenly, the call went out:

“MOOSE! RIGHT SIDE OF THE BUS!”

Everyone was galvanised into activity. Those of us on the wrong side of the bus leapt to our feet and raced to get to the centre aisle. The people on the right were frantically clicking away.

I didn’t get to take any pictures. Luckily, Bernie shared these ones with me.

And here’s a zoomed-in one. Crazy looking animals, aren’t they?

This is Megan feeling happy that we saw a moose.

A train!

This is a typical view. The forest grows right up to the road, just like the English and Irish lanes, only different.

I love how the road so often goes beside rivers. There’s something about seeing the water rushing by that makes me feel happy.

Also, to an Australian, it’s incredible just how much water is here.

It doesn’t seem so to the Canadians. They keep saying what a dry winter it’s been and how the water levels are so low.

But to my eyes, there’s water everywhere!

This was taken as Megan informed me that she was starting to feel travel-sick…

Thankfully, the bus soon stopped and Megan recovered her equilibrium.

We went to see a waterfall.

I’m glad that they showed us this place. It was so lovely.

This was the first view we saw. The river is so far below us. But we could hear the sound of a waterfall.

It was so long and so spectacular. Again, the photo doesn’t do it justice.

Rona and I stood there for ages, she snapping away on her fancy camera, me on my trusty iPhone6.

Another log jam!

Look at how the trees are so thickly blanketed at the top. I don’t think you could get a single tree more up there.

This is my attempt at trying to show how the water at the top was swirling around near the log jam. I liked the look of it.

This shot shows the action of the river over thousands of years. When you think that once, the river was level with the tops of the canyon and now it’s so far below… it’s incredible, isn’t it?

Sun Peaks is a very isolated, family-style ski resort. There were very few people other than ourselves out and about, as there was a major ice hockey game on so everyone in Canada was at home watching it.

The place reminded me of a movie set.

This was us after I finally managed to get into the chair.

This is us trying to get out of it:

Dad joke of the day:

In the morning, on the way to the Jasper Canyon walk we saw another bear!!! It grumpily headed back into the woods when our huge coach pulled up, but see that black splodge in the middle? Definitely a black bear.

The bears’ way of pregnancy is very interesting. Now (May) is the prime time for bears to fatten up over summer before going into hibernation for the winter. It’s also the prime time for them to find a little love.

Once the female is impregnated, the eggs stay in stasis until she goes into the den to hibernate. Her body then does a stress test. Has she eaten enough? Does she have enough body fat?

If so, the eggs will develop. She’ll wake slightly and give birth in January. Black bears stay with their cubs for2 years; grizzlies for 3 years. The mothers have to stay with their cubs, not only to teach them how to survive, but also to protect them from the males.

A male bear will kill any cubs he finds because that brings the female straight back into heat. This, of course, is what he wants – his own genes to go forward another generation. But he doesn’t know which cubs are his. Male bears have been known to kill their own cubs.

When the mother bears are ready to leave their cubs, they just abandon them. Mother bears have been seen to fool their cubs into thinking there’s something scary in the area, so that they all climb up a tree, and then she’ll simply walk away, leaving them to it.

The Jasper Canyon walk was interesting We had a fresh new guide for this one, a guy from South Africa. We got off at the tourist stop and headed to see what we could see, all still fired up after seeing another bear.

We took a quick look at the Maligne River. It was just moseying along, minding its own business, with no idea of what was about to happen to it.

It was about to be squeezed through a narrow gorge. It was so narrow that you could probably jump across it. I guess that’s why they had all the fences, to stop idiots from competing in the Darwin Awards.

The gorge not only goes narrower but also plunges downwards. Our guide said that only 10% of the water stays on the top in the river that flows through the gorge. The rest is flowing underground through massive aquifers.

The canyon was once at the bottom of a shallow sea, which the guide proved by pouring water on some stones in the path. Voila! Seashell fossils were revealed! Unfortunately, my photos weren’t so clear, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. 

The river that’s flowing through the canyon is a dirty river, which means it’s full of sediment that’s continuing the erosion.

In the photo, the green side of the ridge has the canyon plunging down immediately behind it. It was pretty deep.

As we walked along, the canyon grew even narrower, with a log jam happening just before the waterfall on the other side. After our educational beaver movie yesterday, some people asked if it was the work of beavers.

“No,” the guide said. “In nature, trees and branches naturally fall into the river and they’ll flow along the water until they can’t move forward anymore. In this case, it’s the narrow walls of the canyon that’s stopping them.”

The river went from ground level to 37m in the space of a one-minute walk.

I took the chance to nip down some steps to get a closer look. It’s going to take a massive amount of water flowing down the canyon to break up those logs. Still, nature is patient. It’ll happen one day…

Further along, I took this photo. I like it. You can see the river thundering away far below, while near the top a fallen tree is casually lying there, waiting for a chance to topple in.

You can see the washing machine roundness where the rocks have been grinding away at the sides when the water level is higher than it is today.

The waterfall plunges to 78m deep.

I had to zoom in on this one, but can you see the rock suspended between the two sides? It’s been there so long it has vegetation growing on it.

So many little things happening.

It’s just a tiny slit of rock, but you can hear the river racing along below!

The next lake we stopped at was Medicine Lake. A wildfire had gone through there a year or two ago.

It should have felt desolate but it didn’t.

Someone asked Sharon if Parks Canada was going to remove the dead trees.

“No, they’re not going to touch them,” she said. “They’re taking a ‘hands-off’ approach to this. Gradually, the trees will fall and become part of the earth.”

Medicine Lake is like a big bathtub. No rivers or streams flow out from here – all the water drains into the aquifers below.

Here’s a clump of lucky trees. Or maybe they’re not?

The pines that make up so much of Canada’s forests are like some of our gum trees – they need the fires to bring on the new generation.

Also like Australia, the white Canadians have really screwed up this natural design by suppressing fires in the National Parks. By the time wildfires finally get a grip, there’s so much dead growth and tinder that they burn TOO much – and instead of burning the parent trees and leaving the pinecones to regenerate, everything burns to a crisp.

We drove off again, then the bus stopped by the side of the road.

“Here is a bald eagles’ nest,” said Sharon. “If you look, you can see a bunch of twigs on top of a tree, with the white head of the mother or father eagle poking out on top.”

Can you see it?

Here’s a zoomed-in shot in case you couldn’t see it.

There are two Bald Eagle chicks born every year. A competition sparks between them as soon as they’re out of the eggs. Each strives to get the food first, to become the bigger chick. One day, the bigger, stronger chick will push the other one out of the nest.

Only the strongest survive.

Then someone yelled, “Deer!” and sure enough, there was a small herd of deer running away from the bus in all directions directly underneath the eagles nest.

We drove, and soon the bus stopped at a small bridge.

Rainbow trout spawn here. Look at how big they are! I was surprised at the clarity of the water – we could see them so clearly.

Harlequin ducks come through and promptly eat the eggs. The trouts’ strategy is to lay too many eggs for the ducks to eat.

As I was standing on the bridge, suddenly there was a WHOOSH! of water as four Harlequin ducks swept in from under the bridge and started doing exactly as our guide had said. How lucky was that?

They started duck diving and eating invisible things in the water.

They were beautiful.

Then off we drove to what the guide said was “The jewel in the Crown.”

Lake Meligne.

And he was right.

It was utterly beautiful and, to my mind at least, left Lake Louise in the dust. It was far larger than Lake Louise and the isolation and complete lack of a chateau parked in front of it made it the best lake I’ve seen.

It was perfectly framed, with the mountains stretching away behind it.

As we were there, tiny snowflakes began to fall. It was magical.

Look at me in the Antarctica fleecy jacket that was so expensive that I thought I’d never wear it again! It’s been on two more trips now.

🙂

Incidentally, for any Laura Ingalls Wilder fans out there – Lake Melugne was named by a French explorer and priest called De Smet. Yes! The guy that the Ingalls’ town in North Gakota was named after.

He was exploring in the area and he had so much trouble with losing equipment etc on the lake, that he said it had a malign or “meligne’ (in French) presence about it.

Anyway, I got a little excited about that Little House in the Prarie connection.

After a good long while for us to soak in the beauty, we headed back to Jasper

There, we did some laundry, I caught up on the blogging and then we went out to see what Jasper had to offer.

I liked this.

The Rocky Mountains still encircle Jasper, but there’s a feeling of more space in Jasper. It’s decidedly a tourist town, with every second shop being a junky gift shop. I bought a postcard of a black bear – because I’ve seen them now – to put on the fridge.

Other than that, we walked the length and breadth of Jasper, which was a whole two and a half streets, then we came back to the room for dinner.

Leaving on the bus the next day, Sharon asked if we preferred Jasper to Banff.

Everyone said, “NO!”

Dad joke of the day:

Lake Louise is a place that my father has talked about for 40 years. He and Mum came here sometime in the 1970s when the water was blue and the day was perfect.

I came at a time when the weather was a little grey, with tiny flakes of snow dropping and the lake was still frozen over.

But as you can see, it is still beautiful.

Tommy Wilson was the first white person to see Lake Louise. The Native Americans that he was with called it “The lake of little fishes.” The water is cold all year round, only getting as high as 4C at the height of summer. As one wit said, “You fall in a man and come out a boy!”

When we were driving to Lake Louise in the morning, Sharon told us a few pioneer stories. The first was about Georgia Engelhard.

She was an intrepid mountaineer and scandalised the good people of Banff by appearing in pants instead of skirts. One newspaper editor fumed:

“Pants weren’t made for women; pants were made for men. And women were made for men.”

Jimmy Simpson was born “bad to the bone” according to his Scottish family, who sent him to Winnipeg, Canada when he was 16. In those days Winnipeg was a rough and tumble town – and it still is, according to Sharon – and before he knew it, Jimmy had gambled away the money he was given by his family to buy a farm and then he sold his gold watch for a train ticket to Calgary.

He didn’t have enough money to buy a ticket all the way, so he stowed away on a train and was thrown off when he was discovered by the conductor because he was snoring too loudly.

When he reached Banff, he found his place. He found work as an outfitter and soon became very good at it, earning the nickname “Wolverine Go Quickly” by the Native Americans because he was so quick at walking with snowshoes and he was a crack shot and excellent at setting trap lines.

He fell in love with Williamina “Billie” Ross Reid, and together they raised a family in the cabin that he built by the Bow River. It became a massive tourist attraction once the road was built in the 1930’s.

It was built in an octagonal shape because the trees in the area were so small. This gave it a distinctive air and it was wildly popular.

He wasn’t a great businessman and it was Billie, who used to be an ice skater, who engineered the family’s financial security. She taught her daughters to ice skate and when they grew up they joined the Icescapades, earning the money to pay off their father’s debts.

He was called ‘The Old Man of the Mountain” and was a popular figure in Banff. As well as his mountain skills, he was a gifted painter as well,

Jimmy Simpson lived till he was 95, and when he died the Prime Minister of Canada gave the eulogy, saying that he did more for tourism in Canada than anyone else.

Not bad for a boy who was “bad to the bone!”

Bill Peyto was originally christened as Ebenezer William Peyto, so no wonder he went by the name of Bill! He also came out to Canada at a young age from England and found work as an outfitter in Banff.

He reportedly liked horses much more than people, and wealthy customers would sometimes complain that after a long day’s riding, he’d make them wait for him to pitch the camp while he’d bathe, feed and water the horses first. Once he’d pitch camp for them, he’d leave them to their own devices while he’d go off to a lake he liked and he’d unroll his swag there.

He was a beloved character of the area, easily recognisable by the wild west clothes that he wore – A leather jacket with fringes on the sleeve that he had a nervous habit of picking off; two pairs of leather trousers, with the top pair being full of holes; and a perfectly starched white neckcloth that people said was actually napkins that he used to seal from the Banff Springs hotel.

He fought in the Boer war and when he returned he learned that Banff was going to throw a welcome parade in his honour. He jumped off the train the day before it arrived in Banff so the citizens of Banff had to have the parade without the main player.

A typical story about him was one where he wanted to have a quiet drink, but when he got to the bar there were a lot of noisy men in there. He went out, grabbed one of the lynxes that he used to keep as pets, came back and let it out in the bar. The place emptied in a panic, and he was able to enjoy his drink in peace.

He became the first warden of the Banff National Park, and he has a glacier and a lake named after him.

Anyway, back to Lake Louise. I’ve wanted to see this place ever since I was a child.

Rona taught me how to do a panorama shot by taking this shot for me. You can see how winter is still hanging onto the Rockies this year, even in the middle of May.

Lake Louise is perfectly framed by the mountains. When the guy who built the grand hotel in Banff saw it, he very quickly arranged to build another big hotel here.

This hotel was built to resemble a Swiss chateau because there were so many Swiss guides at the time who were working in the area. They no longer let blow-ins like us inside the main part of the hotel, but they’re not stupid. One side of the hotel has a café that was doing a roaring trade in coffee.

I’m sure I spent more time waiting in line for a coffee (and a cheese croissant that I bought for lunch) than I did gazing at the lake.

As I was walking towards the hotel to buy a coffee, I saw a girl doing a photoshoot down by the shore. Rona, Mad and I walked down to get a closer look, but by the time we got there, she was all tugged up in a goosedown jacket.

I don’t blame her. For the first day of this trip, I ditched the grey dress and put on trackie dacks. It was a cold day.

On the bus ride towards the next adventure – A GLACIER WALK that I forgot we were doing until this morning – we heard a couple of stories about bears. In Banff they cut down apple trees if the apples aren’t picked in time, to discourage the bears from coming into town.

One time, there was a bear found spreadeagled on the roof of a house. He’d eaten all the apples from the tree beside the house, then climbed up onto the roof to have a little rest. People were coming from all over town to take photos.

The drive from Banff to Jasper consistently ranks fourth on the list of the world’s best drives. It didn’t disappoint.

Snow on the trees. We were so lucky to see them like this.

This is one side of a lake we drove past.

And here is the other side. Frozen. Yes, it’s the same lake.

The Athabasca Glacier Walk was great. “Athabasca” means “where the reeds grow”, and there’s a mountain, a river, a glacier and about a dozen other things all named Athabasca.

This place is unique in that there are 6 glaciers all in the same area.

We were going to be moved onto the ice by getting into another coach, which drives to the specialised vehicle called an Ice Explorer, which would then take us to the glacier. By the time we got there, we’d have around 30 minutes on the ice.

I tell you, after Antarctica it felt weird being allowed to walk in the ice without snowshoes, and it felt strangely silent not to hear the sound of penguins calling to each other.

The guy driving the ice explorer machine was an English guy called Liam.

He was telling us the history of the ice explorers and then he said this:

“I drive a Mercedes every day worth 1.3 million. I tell my Mum and it keeps her happy. She thinks I’m making something of myself.”

There are 23 of these ice explorer cars in the world and 21 of them are here. Two are permanently in Antarctica and one of them is owned by Australia and the other by America.

Liam said that there are fewer Ice Explorer drivers in the world than there are astronauts, which is pretty amazing when you think about it.

The Ice Explorer can drive on angles up to 36 degrees and the wheels are only 2 inches shorter than I am. It’s a beast.

The truck can move up to a gradient of 36 degrees, which is incredible. It moves at an impressive 25 kms/hour. 

The ice is from the world’s last ice age, and now the experts estimate that there are only 60 – 80 years of its life left.

Here’s me looking excited. I don’t know what I was doing with my hands.

Looking back towards the Ice Explorer.

A close-up of the ice at the top of the glacier.

Beautiful, isn’t it?

After we got back from the glacier I went through the gift shop. Nothing I wanted to buy! I was so proud of myself.

Then I was all on my own. I took the very squashed cheese croissant that I bought from Lake Louise and went outside. I found a nice flat rock to sit on, draped my coat over my knees and ate my lunch in front of a beautiful little glacier. I’ve got no idea which one of the 6 possible glaciers it was, but I didn’t care. It was beautiful.

So there I sat, happily munching away on my croissant and an Aldi nut bar I had in my bag and I had the most peaceful, beautiful lunch.

I put an alarm on my phone so I wouldn’t be late for the bus. Another little adventure that I’d almost forgotten about was the river rafting that I’d signed up to do this afternoon.

What a day!

We were rumbling along, then suddenly the cry went up from the front of the bus, “BEAR!”

omg!

He was intent on eating as much grass as he could. He looked up at us, then went back to filling his mouth with as much grass as he could. He was eating with gusto!

We were all thrilled. One of the big ones has been crossed off the list!

Then it was time to go on a gentle rafting trip. At the last minute, Megan decided to come too. Why not? We’re only here once.

We were split into two groups. My rafter guy was called Brad. He’s been doing this for 11 years and was very skilful. He managed to splash every single one of us during the 8km river ride.

All the peaks in this part of the mountain range are named for Victoria Cross recipients. Not just Canadians, but also British and Australian.

One of the guys asked Brad what were the best animal encounters he’d had in his 11 years of doing this. He said the best one was when they rounded a curve on the river and they saw two grizzlies fighting on the bank.

“They weren’t at all interested in us, and the river was flowing slowly, so we all got a great view of it.”

Another time a group of elk burst out of the woods right near where we assembled to get onto the rafts, and they swam to a little island. One of them had huge claw marks down his back, so they were escaping from something!

Lightning hit this tree and the top half fell into the river. After a couple of years, Brad noticed two holes at the top. Something had decided to make the stump its home. He guesses that it’s a woodpecker but he hasn’t seen anything coming or going.

By the time he told this story, we’d gone past the tree, so you can only see one hole at the top, but trust me, there were two.

Remember how I said that Brad splashed everyone? This woman was sitting opposite me. She was NOT AMUSED.

“These ponchos do NOTHING to protect you!” she kept saying.

There were tourists on the banks of the river and we’d all wave.

It’s an interesting thought to realise that when the explorers and the Native Americans first came through here, the only clear and reliable way to get around was by river travel.

I don’t know how they did it. Life in those times must have been brutal.

Anyway, I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. The sound of the water, the beautiful scenery and the fresh air were all very pleasant. There were no white water bits to scare the living daylights out of you, but that’s ok. I’ll save that for another trip.

We ended the day in Jasper. Our hotel has a laundry room, so everyone is very excited about doing laundry.

It’s the little things…

Dad joke of the day: