Beautiful blue skies, lush green trees, bright blue lakes, snow caped rocky mountains and Canadian wildlife were what we had planned for out next trip. Mother nature was on our side as we were blessed with a beautiful day as we took our car and headed east to the Canadian Rockies on a two week road trip. Lets just hope we can tick the rest off the list over the next two weeks.
We had organised to meet Ann (Sommers Mum) in Calgary as she was coming over to spend some time with us in Canada before heading to the Caribbean.
We loaded the car up and left Whistler early morning planning to get to Revelstoke for the first night on the road. It was an amazing drive particularly at the start going up through the mountains. We made a stop at Joffres Lake, a place where we had planed to visit eventually while in Whistler. We only made to the first lake of three (the other two were over 6km round trip), which was still half frozen and surrounded by snow capped mountains. After leaving here we seen our first lot of deer on the side of the road, but still hoping to see much more wildlife along the trip.
We kept on moving, stopping at another couple of lakes along the way, Duffey and Seton Lakes. They were all as good as each other with amazing features, including beautiful reflections and amazing colours. From Seton Lake it was then a short drive to Lillooet, a small country town. From here we progressed quite quickly through Cache Creek and Kamloops, the surrounding turned very much like a dessert with rolling hills, which we really didn’t expect.
We then made it to Sicamous, where we decided to have a break and enjoy the sun on the banks of the Mara and Shuswap Lakes. It had a little beach also with a small canal around the houses, again not what we were expecting.
It was then a 45 minute drive to our overnight destination of Revelstoke, a small ski resort. It had been a long day and we had travelled over 500km, fair to say we were exhausted.
The following morning we set off around 8am and first headed to the Giant Cedar Boardwalk Trail about 30 minutes out of town. Although the park was closed still due to the winter season we still decided to go in any way and do the short boardwalk trail through the huge 500 year old cedars. After getting back on the road it was now that we could really start to see the Rocky Mountains in the distance, around each bend would show more and more snow capped peaks. It was a stunning drive and just kept getting better the closer we got. There were many small and large water falls flowing off the mountains as well as 30-40 metre high trees, all different shades colours of green, it was really breathtaking.
We had a short stop in the Yoho National park before heading to Canmore, where we were booked in to stay for 3 nights. We headed into town for a short walk to get so information about what we could do. He informed us that he would recommend us purchasing some bear spray (large bottle of pepper spray) incase we came across an averaged bear along our way. We could not believe this is somethings that the locals actually carried around with them. We ended up doing a short walk around the Bow River with the stunning Rocky Mountain backdrop. This place was amazing (Nick’s ready to move here for the summer).
After dinner we drove to Calgary, about an hour away to pick up Ann from the airport after her 24 hour/4 flight trip from Melbourne. It was a bit of a battle getting into the airport due to lack of signage and a map on our behalf, but we managed and got back to Canmore watching the sunset over the Rockies.
Day three started a little later, as we let Ann have a sleep in after her long journey to meet us in Calgary. After breakfast we were heading to do a short hike to Grassi Lakes. This was a 3.8km round trip which was recommended by the information centre. As we arrived to the Lakes we were greeted with crystal clear water, you could see every stone and log on the bottom. The 2 Lakes were very close to each other and after trying to capture these beautiful lakes on our camera (which was impossible) we headed back to the car and back to our hotel for lunch.
After lunch we headed on a drive hoping to see some wildlife which again was recommended by the information centre. It was up and around the base of a mountain and then along different lakes, we made many stops along the way to take in the views. All up we were on the dirt road for around 2 hours and didn’t see any wildlife, but as soon as we got back onto the paved road for the 50km drive back to Canmore we seen Big Horn Sheep straight away! We then continually seen a lot of deer on the side of the road, but still no bears.
After our first 3 days of sunny blues sky weather we were surprised to wake up to snow flurries the following morning, some more surprised than others as Ann was almost beside herself. She asked if it was cold outside and opened the door to snow, she was very surprised. With the cooler overcast skies we just went for a leisurely walk around the town of Canmore checking out the shops.
We were planing an early start the next day, where we would visit Banff on route to Lake Louise where we were excited to be checking into the Fairmont Lake Louise.
Chao for now,
N & S xx
Abroad with Nick & Som... 