Location: Samesun Backpackers Hostel, Banff, Alberta, Canada
Time of Writing: 12:00
Firstly my apologies that it has taken me 6 days to update this! Im delighted to see that one or two of you actually read this and missed it for the last few days! Basically its been a very busy few days on the road, spent Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in Edmonton - a place that i can only describe as a concrete Jungle! Its a very large sprawling city that lacks alot of the characture of other Canadian citys I have visited.... so why the 3 days there then?! Well Marco wanted to meet up with some friends that he came to know while traveling in Oz and so it came to be that we checked into the clean and very modern Go Backpackers hostel in downtown Edmonton for 3 nights. Tuesday night I went to have a pint in The Black Dog bar on the southern side of the city, this had been recommended to me by a friend back home who had been once or twice while visiting his sister in law who lives over here. Although only a Tuesday night the bar was busy and had a good atmosphere as did the Empress bar which is actually part owned by my friends sister in law. Wednesday i went to visit Edmontons main tourist attrcation....a mall! Granted its the worlds biggest mall but shopping aint my thing so i duly went to the cinema to kill time! Watched "The Town" which i really reccomend! The Mall was slightly interesting in that it had its own theme park, water park and full size ice rink as well as its own replecation of New Orleans Burbon st but honestly to me it was just a monstrosity of epic proportion! One thing I will say about Edmonton is that the people of the place were very friendly so much so that one even apologized for being already married when i joked with her about having to leave the country in 3 weeks or alternately find some Canadian to marry me! So my summery of Edmonton... great people but a sprawling abyss of concrete....
At last on Friday we left for the Rockies and the whole reason i came to this fine country was about to be realized.... Enterting Jasper National Park is an experience in itself as the view in all directions is a picture postcard. Our first stop was at the Minette natural hot springs just inside the park. This was certainly something id never experienced before - naturally accruing hot springs and lazy about in them for an hour was cool esp considering the air temperature was a mere 10c. Friday night was spent camping in Jasper in the Whistler camp grounds, as it was approx 2km from the town we took our bikes into the village and enjoyed a few social drinks in the Jasper Brewhouse. Saturday we left Jasper and headed south along the Ice Parkway towards Banff stopping along the way for a hike around the 5 lakes and then again at the Athabasca Glacier... a truely magnificent piece of geography at the edge of the Columbia Ice field. Sat night was spent in a wilderness hostel which is essentially a mountain hostel with solar powered communal lights but no electricity. It did however have a sauna and an accompanying mountain stream in which to cool down after a session baking in the heat!!! Certainly a different way to spend a Sat night!!!
I guess Sunday being the 10/10/10 is a poinient day and will be remembered by many but for me it will rememberd as the fisrt day i ever laid eyes on Banff! and that requires an entire blog on its own!
more to follow later...