What time is it there?!

Having travelled south we were now ready to start a hectic week of visiting some of the most spectacular scenery of our trip so far. We’ve also been very lucky with the weather, after some cloudy and rainy days on the northwest coast we are rewarded with clear sunny days for most of our time in the national parks.

The Sequoia Park guidebook takes great pride in explaining that the park is far less crowded than Yosemite. This turned out to be true, and for large parts of the day it felt like we had the place to ourselves.

The scale of the big parks started to become obvious today as well. The driveable road through Sequoia covers a small edge of the actual park area, and looks almost insignificant on the map. Once you start to plan your journey however you realise that it is 50 miles of quite windy road at an elevation of 6000ft!

The road through the park is known as The Generals Highway, so named because it links the General Grant and General Sherman trees, the latter being the largest living thing on the planet. As impressive as these individual trees are, it is the long parts of the journey when you are completely surrounded by Sequoias that are the most memorable.

Hopefully the photos will give some idea of the size of the trees, as it is difficult to convey the scale in a small picture (a problem which will return at the Grand Canyon!).

We decided that we were slipping a bit behind schedule at this point so we decided on a long drive, 400 miles south in one day to give ourselves more time later on.

One good thing about long drives on Interstate freeways here is that there is not that much traffic for much of the time. The other thing is that the speed limit isn’t 55mph everywhere, so you can actually get up to 70 or 75mph (varies by state). The downside to such journeys is that they can be pretty boring, so there aren’t many photos from today.

We did take a break and stop in Sacramento the state capital. It was quite quiet downtown as we had arrived on Sunday morning, but we did find the ‘Old Town’ area which was quite nice (if a bit touristy).

Oh boy! it was cold up there!!!! At 14,162ft it is only the 6th highest mountain in California. The road goes up to around 8000 ft. and there was LOTS of fresh snow around. It was a bit hairy but we have a 4WD so we figured we were as well equipped as the rest of the people up there.
Views were spectacular of the surrounding area.

After the mountain we went to Shasta Dam on the way back to Redding. This was much less exciting than the mountain. The visitor centre had some interesting bits but it’s a bit tricky getting near actual dams in this country now because of the surrounding security. There was a tour that went out onto the dam, but since it seemed to require a virtual stripsearch and you couldn’t take cameras we decided against it!

Next we headed inland through ‘Bigfoot’ country towards the town of Redding. We didn’t see Bigfoot and in fact we didn’t see much at all on this day as we were quite high up and the weather was poor, all misty and rainy. At the end of the day we arrived at the town of Redding, our stop for the next two nights and the winner of the ‘worst lodgings so far’ prize, complete with welcome ‘ant’ party ...... eeeeeek.

We read that Redding claims to be the 2nd sunniest town in California, this may be why its’ main tourist attraction centres around ‘Sundial Bridge’. It really is a sundial and it really is a bridge ...... funny how they came up with the name then!!!!. It is lit up at night so it made for some good pictures. In the day it projects the time onto a huge circle in the park nearby as the needle is 217 ft high.

Redding is also a prime example of a town centre that has been destroyed by huge out of town malls as we carefully followed the map to the town centre shopping mall to find that there was nothing there. A helpful lady in a coffee shop explained where the shops now were (a huge mall about a mile down the freeway)!

The next day we headed north from Eureka to the main Redwood National Park. We had planned to go to the area called ‘Tall Trees Grove’ to see the tallest tree in the world but the park ranger advised us that we didn’t really have time to get there and back before dark and then went on to tell us that it wasn’t the tallest tree in the world anyway as the top got blown off a couple of years ago ....... we shall be writing to all the guide book publishers notifying them of their errors (even the park brochure was incorrect!).

We did however manage to see a LOT of VERY BIG trees, even if they weren’t the tallest in the world ...... after a couple of hours surrounded by these monsters, they all look MASSIVE and the same!

With crooks in our necks from too much looking up we headed for a tree that you could drive through, just for the fun of it really. There isn’t anywhere that the main road goes through a tree but there are three places where (for a small fee) you can drive ‘thru’. Once again we mis-calculated the shortening days and dusk was upon us as we arrived. This didn’t stop us and at least it meant the we didn’t have to queue.

After the disappointment of Glass (or not so glass!) beach, we headed further north towards the Redwood Forests. Our first sight of these giant trees (they are the tallest tress in the world) was along a stretch of road called ‘Avenue of the Giants’. Unfortunately it was getting a little dark by this stage and most photo opportunities came out too dark to publish. However, we did discover that it is true what the park information states about wildlife coming to the roadside at dusk as we encountered a family of Deer in the middle of the road ....... no animals were harmed in the making of this web-site.

We stayed in the town of Eureka for a couple of days. It had a nice old town area which had been restored ... slightly!

Not much in the guide books about Fort Bragg other than it isn’t (never was) a fort at all. The only thing it recommends is Glass Beach, the sight of an old public dump which has since been cleared away. All that remains are the sea smoothed pieces of glass that shimmer along the sand in the sun ........hummmmm where?........ All that seems to now remain is a few hillbillies scrabbling around in the sand for a few remaining particles (of which there are virtually none) to put together in a bracelet and claim they are gems.

Tip : Fort Bragg wasn’t bad, but Glass Beach is a total disappointment, save yourselves the mile walk for something more worthwhile!

The coast line is dotted with tiny little towns and we have begun our quest to find the lowest populated one. So far it is 30 but we are sure there must be somewhere lower so our quest continues ........

Mendocino has to be one of the most beautiful of the coastal towns. Almost all the houses have been restored to their original state and many of the water towers which dot the village have been wonderfully developed into little houses and B+B’s. It is in this village that you find the oldest Catholic Church in California and the oldest Chinese Temple too. Try your taste buds on some Mendecino chocolate although take your credit card as they don’t come cheap!

And so begins our journey up the North Coast of California which will take us nearly to its’ most northerly point and past more stunning scenery. Our first night after Napa was Santa Rosa. Accommodation was basic but we were then in a good location to make a start.

We have taken hundreds of pictures of the Pacific Ocean crashing on the rocks of the North Coast but a few samplers here should highlight how spectacular it was (we'll try not to bore you with TOO many pictures!). The ruggedness of the coastline means LIGHTHOUSES and we saw several ....... Raccoons came to greet us at one in anticipation of some dinner but we left that to the next tourists!

Twice a year you can apparently watch whales from the coast with binoculars as they migrate north and south. Unfortunately we were just a few weeks early for the November viewing season.
Goat Rock was a small beach area and cove where Harbour Seals live.

We spent nearly an hour watching them frolicking about in the incoming tide and loafing about on the beach ... it’s a seals life ....

Sunday was our first of 2 visits to Napa ( ..... no we hate wine and the 120 bottle rack in the kitchen is just for show!) Apparently the tastings used to be free (as we found in Australia last year) , but this is no longer the case and everywhere we went charged for wine tasting (anything up to $20). You usually get a free glass at the end of it, but those clearly aren't going to survive in the ruck sacks for the next 11 months!!!

We tasted the high life in Domaine Chandon and that was it for Nikky as she was the designated driver, having picked up our car that will serve us well for the next 4 weeks.

A winery called V Sattui was very interesting and we were given a full briefing on Cabernet Sauvignon by a very enthusiastic lover of said grape. It did mean that we got to taste alot that was off the official tasting list and it was free (always a bonus!) We had a delicious picnic lunch in the grounds as the fog hadn't followed us up from the city luckily although we probably spent more on Cheese in the Deli than most punters did on wine!

Our second visit to Napa was to some 'off the beaten track' wineries in search of a red wine without tannins and something which could not be bought anywhere else. A tall order for Steven who was our guide for the day but one that he fulfilled perfectly. Nikky ended up with a dessert wine called 'Once in a Blue Moon' where only 400 cases have been made and it is only sold from the Chateau Potelle winery in Napa. She is now waiting for an opportunity to drink it!

We were also given a great bottle of red which was only about the second red wine that Nikky has ever liked. Unfortunately this was a one off, made a few years ago by Steven, Dan (who has kindly lent us his car), and some other friends of theirs, so we won't be getting any more!

We found out lots of interesting facts about wine making and the Napa Valley in general which will be stored in Marks' wine memory bank for use at a later date. Other wineries we visited included Artesa and Hess which also had an art gallery so Nikky was happy with her dose of culture. All in all, it was a fantastic day.

On Saturday we went over to Sausalito with the idea in mind of having a leisurely brunch gazing back at San Francisco, unfortunately the fog had other ideas!

It did brighten up a bit later on and gradually the city came into a somewhat hazy view. Whilst we waited we watched someone stack rocks on top of each other and defy the laws of gravity. Sounds odd but the pictures seem to describe it better.

Back to the city and still the Golden Gate Bridge was covered in fog but the city itself was clear. We had a little trip through the Castro and saw some splendid houses. Then on to Lombard Street, where 'The Crookedest Street in the World' certainly lived up to its' name.

Our last stop of the day was Treasure Island, in the middle of the harbour towards Oakland. An interesting but very bizarre place. It used to be a military base and still has many of the buildings, but it's not really clear what most of it is used for now. From our limited research it seems that some of the most valuable land in the Bay Area (with a superb view back to the city skyline) is being used as housing for low income families and public service employees. This is great, but unfortunately there seem to be plans to 'develop' the island.

After Mark's 'discovery' of motion sickness on the rough Barrier Reef seas last year you'll be pleased to know that on the journey to Alcatraz he was fine, not a sick bag in sight! Well, it IS only 10 minutes across a sheltered harbour!

The tour around the former penitentiary was excellent and remains in Nikky's ' Top tours she has ever been on' list. A few other dithering foreigners who clearly had lost their way from the audio tour did not hamper our enjoyment. The biting wind reminded us to continue to be law abiding citizens as we would not cope with that exposure to the elements in a place like that.

TIP 1: The Audio Tour of Alcatraz is a must. $16 including the ferry trip, and worth every cent.
TIP 2: Book well ahead for the tour (you can do it online), especially if your time in the city is limited. We went on a Friday morning and they were already selling tickets for Sunday by then.

Probably the best view we had of San Francisco was as we came in to land. For the next few days we were plagued with fog and a view of the Golden Gate Bridge eluded us for the first few days!

We walked for several miles on our first day and caught a glimpse of a few of the sights. This included a 45 minute wait for a Cable Car (that's a Tram rather than a ride up a mountainside) ride which we decided to pass on. On the day we actually did ride the Cable Car the queue wasn?t that much of a shorter either.

Tip: If you're short of time in San Francisco don't queue for the cable car ride unless it's some kind of lifetime ambition. It's OK but hardly a lifechanging experience.

We visited the seafood stalls down on the harbour so we could try the Clam Chowder. We did this 'traditional style' in a sour dough bread bowl, although we weren't sure if we were actually meant to eat the bowl!!

The Coit Tower provided an excellent view of the, er, fog cover over the city! It's a good place to get a decent view for a relatively low cost and I'm sure it must be even better on a clear day. Just prepare yourself for some steep hills if you're going to walk to it.

Our 'Hotel' accommodation in San Francisco was top notch ..... fully equipped, barely used kitchen (complete with broiler (that's a grill!) which is fierce enough to brown a creme brulee in seconds!), personal laptop complete with wireless internet and a BIG flat screen TV with all the channels you could wish for. Iron Chef got a good airing during this stay! THANKS CHRIS X

Our last experience with US border security was quite smooth so we were hoping for a repeat as we checked in for our flight to San Francisco. As it happened it wasn't too bad. Nikky got 'pre-selected' for 'additional screening'.... dodgy looking!

I did get pulled aside by one of the security guards, who told me he had something very important that I needed to do when I got back to the UK. So I was thinking they were going to ask us to fill in some kind of official form. But oh no, his request?..... Get the Spice Girls back together!! So if anyone wants to volunteer for this in our absence...... please seek medical help!

Even the flightcrew had a sense of humour, so much so that the final announcement after we arrived at the gate in San Francisco was 'Cabin crew disarm doors, check hair and makeup'!

Unfortunately our Seattle photo collection isn’t as good as it might be, because it continued to be quite cloudy for the next few days. We held off as long as we could and went up the Bank of America tower on the last morning, just before we left for the airport. So there are a few shots from up high but you’ll have to put up with them being a bit grey!

OK, so we went to visit a factory. Doesn’t sound very exciting admittedly, but it was quite interesting. As it happens it is (by volume) the largest building in the world and they build Boeing 747’s inside. (I guess it’s possible that Airbus now have a larger building, but I don’t imagine Boeing will be telling the tourists that!).

So what do you need to build 747, 767 and 777’s? Well, the building covers just under 98 acres, stands 11 storeys tall, and the staff can jog the 2.4 miles around the outside. You also need a staff of 15,000 to put the 6 million parts together, and 19 cafeterias to keep the production running 24 hours a day.

Unfortunately there are no photos of any of this because you aren’t allowed to take ANYTHING onto the tour.

We followed this up with a visit to the museum of flight, which is the final resting place of the Concorde which made the last commercial flight. Once again this may not seem all that interesting to some of you..... but look at it this way, the other two major companies in Seattle are Starbucks and Microsoft. Which museum would you rather see pictures of?!

......For the benefit of the team at UniChem and anyone else who has ever seen the DVD called Fish! as part of management development and team building, it was filmed at the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle. To ensure that I got the most of from the training and to see the ‘enthusiasm’ in action, I made a bee-line for the exact location. It was great fun and they do really throw 5lb Salmon around. It would have been fun to see them drop one but they seem pretty slick at the fundamentals of throwing and catching, probably something to do with the American fascination for baseball and learning at a VERY early age. The whole thing is a real spectacle. The monkfish needed pointing out with its’ own introductory sign!! It was also attached to a rope when pulled, jumped to unsuspecting punters.

The whole market was a fish frenzy with some of the biggest prawns that we have ever seen. We bought a few and rustled up a prawn/pasta dish for tea ... when in Rome! Flowers are also in abundance here so if you want Fish and Flowers, this is the plaice(!) to come.

Near the market is also the home of Starbucks - as tourists we took some pictures of the old shop front but we didn’t join their many millions of clientele.

The coach dropped us off within about two blocks of the Space Needle. Unfortunately this was not really anywhere near where we were staying, so we didn’t have to wait too long before getting to grips with the public transport. The alternative was a taxi but the bus turned out to be a good idea, since we didn’t have the correct change and the bus driver let us go for free (which we certainly didn’t expect!).

Seattle was our second hostel stay and turned out to be even better than the first. The location was great, right next door to the Pike Place Market and very central for the rest of the city.

We had the chance to go and watch the Seattle Seahawks play on Sunday, but decided against it for two reasons. Firstly, we weren’t sure whether we could really sit through a whole game of American Football, and secondly it turned out that the only tickets available on the day of the game were $245 each. So we chose to spend the afternoon walking around more of the city instead!

There's a question on one of the US immigration forms which basically says: "Are you, or have you ever been, a terrorist", answer Yes or No.

Hmmm..... tricky. Fortunately the Canadian coach driver advises us that answering 'Yes' will significantly hamper the chances of us arriving in Seattle on time. So it's a simple matter of being finger-printed, photographed, having an RFID tag stapled into our passports and paying $6 each, and we are free to enter the USA.

Apparently everyone else on the bus also answered 'No' since we got through quite quickly. (The other reason that this was good was because there are no public toilets at the US border, for "security reasons". So look out for all the toilets to be removed at Heathrow soon.)

With a few small highlights TV is pretty dismal here. When we last came four years ago it was quite similar to the UK, but now the programs are almost identical. Obviously in most cases the UK version was just a copy of the US one, but can anyone believe that the BBC have actually managed to export ‘My Family’ and ‘My Hero’(??) ??!!!??!! Oh yes, and Coronation Street is on for an hour every week night. Joy.

One of the best bits about North American TV is that there are two TV channels that show live F1. Not only do they have fewer adverts than the dreaded ITV coverage, but they show the qualifying and even the Friday practice live. AND they then lock up their own presenters and buy the ITV commentary for the main race.

And finally, on the subject of UK TV being remakes of other countries programmes, here’s something we’re fairly certain you’ll be seeing before we get home. So keep an eye out for ‘Iron Chef’. It’s actually a Japanese show that’s been copied by the Americans (as well as showing the original with terrible dubbing), so if nothing else you’ll see it on ‘Tarrant on TV’. Somehow I can’t see Ainsley and A.W.T. pulling off the hardman facial expressions required for the show! The presenter does look a bit like Lloyd Grossman though, so my money's on him to be the presenter.....

Apologies to those who will have no idea what this is all about. However, for those who do know what I (Mark) am talking about, I’ve found a new location. It’s not curry (even though it’s called Spice Gallery, but it should challenge even Mr Moreton’s ability to consume food. All you can eat salad bar and BBQ for about £8 anyone? (In case you’re wondering that would include beef, pork, hotdogs, burgers, turkey, salmon, meatballs, and of course barbecued mussels!).

Vancouver continues to have very ‘British’ weather, so we opted for one of the ‘hop-on hop-off’ bus tours. So, we can confirm that Elvis doesn’t work down the chipshop, in spite of what Kirsty MacColl might have thought. No, in fact he drives an old fashioned tour bus in Vancouver (see photos for evidence).

First stop was the aquarium in Stanley Park. The park is just on the edge of the downtown area and covers 1000 acres. The aquarium isn’t really very large but we still somehow managed to spend well over 3 hours there. Rather embarrassingly this meant that, after we’d walked to another couple of sights in the park, we missed the last tour bus of the day.

Of course our excuse is that we then got to see some bits of town that we would otherwise have driven straight past. It also allowed us to find a new low price for local internet cafes, a mere £1 an hour, the only slight challenge being that we had to contend with numerous websites defaulting to Chinese rather than English (due to the more usual clientele in the area).

There were two main ‘touristy’ things that we didn’t get to do while we were here. The first was a trip to Whistler. The main reason for missing this was time, but having read several of the tourist leaflets (and since we weren’t going there to ski) it looked like an even more pretentious version of what we’d seen in Banff. I’m sure it’s probably a lovely skiing destination, but on this occasion we decided to skip it.

The other thing we missed out on was a whale-watching trip. This was again partly due to time, but mainly because the weather never really improved for long enough to persuade us to go out to sea! So the whales will have to wait for another time, hopefully we’ll be able to return a little earlier in the year in the future.

The immediate neighbourhood around the hostel is soon forgotten once we realise that it’s less than 5 minutes walk to the edge of the main downtown area.

Our first discovery is that we’ve arrived in time for the last week of the film festival. This is a much bigger event than the one in Calgary and we manage to find a couple of interesting looking films to see over the next two days.

So our mini film guide to the festival is as follows. Both are documentaries, which I’m guessing are unlikely to get full releases in the UK, but may turn up late at night on Channel 4 (if you’re interested of course).

This Divided State
Documents what happened when a college in Utah (ie. a state full of Mormons who are BIG George Bush fans) invites Michael Moore as a guest speaker. Anyone who’s interested can find more info at www.thisdividedstate.com.

A.K.A. Tommy Chong
“In 2003, budgets allocated to the apprehension of the US government's top criminal targets were as follows: $25 million for the head of Osama bin Laden; $15 million each spent for information on the whereabouts of Uday and Qusay Hussein, the sons of Saddam; and $12 million spent to apprehend Tommy Chong... Co-founder of the stoner-comedy team of Cheech & Chong”

A good choice, since this was runner-up for the ‘Most Popular International Film’ as voted by audiences. Not only that but we got to meet the man himself. So our one brush with celebrity so far has been with a man who is famous for, um, making jokes about marijuana….

So, just a few days before we attempt to enter the United States, here we are putting money in the pocket of a convicted federal criminal. Good move. Let’s see if they still let us in!

Our last stop in Canada and our first venture into a proper hostel (rather than just ‘the-cheapest-hotel-we-could-find-in-town’).

It’s actually not a bad place, it’s only really let down by location. Not that the location is bad, it’s only a couple of blocks from the heart of the city, but it’s in what has (apparently relatively recently) become known as the ‘Entertainment District’.

Now, a couple of decades ago this was probably ‘Theatreland’, and there are a couple of reasonable hotels on the same street, but it reminded me most of the lower end of Union Street in Plymouth. For those of you unfamiliar with that area, think of loud nightclubs and some slightly dodgy looking people. Throw in a wide selection of ‘Adult’ shops and you’ve completed the picture!
Having said all that, it didn’t really feel unsafe, and the hostel had 24hr cover on the reception desk and proper keycard access to all the rooms (in case anyone’s worried about us!). At least it didn’t have ‘needle disposal’ containers attached to the lamp posts outside like the place we nearly stayed at in Calgary.....

A swift walk around the block in Kamloops confirmed that there wasn’t much to do (especially on the Sunday night of Canadian Thanksgiving weekend), so an early night was had to set us up for yet another early morning start.

The scenery changes on the second day. We’re moving down out of the mountains, the river is widening, and there are more farms and towns. The weather also turns in the middle of the day, so the last afternoon is quite rainy with low clouds. Not great photo weather.

Because of the weather the last hour or so is a little disappointing, but overall it’s a fantastic trip which we’d highly recommend. The only thing I might do differently, would be to travel eastbound rather than westbound. It may have just been down to the weather, but arriving in Vancouver felt like a bit of an anti-climax. Heading into the mountains and ending up surrounded by them in Jasper might be a better end to the journey.

The day started very early with a hotel check out at 6.30am....! It was still dark. By the time we had checked in at the station the sun had begun to rise. The train sets off at just after 8am and we’re straight into more spectacular scenery. (Nikky excels herself by staying awake the entire time despite the 5:30am alarm call!)

When we were picked up from the hotel in the morning someone had made a remark to the bus driver about falling asleep later on the train. His response had been that we wouldn’t have time to fall asleep because “they feed you all day on the train”. We soon discovered that he hadn’t been joking. (Apologies to those of you who have been travelling on dodgy overnight buses in South America recently, but this was the complete opposite).

We were fortunate to be the last carriage on the train today. This meant that when the driver spotted wildlife and called the crew in each carriage, we had plenty of time to react. That was the theory anyway. In reality, we have a couple of blurred photos that really, really were moose even though they may look like brown blobs to the untrained eye! Shortly afterwards a bear was spotted, but we didn’t even see this one so you’ve been spared the dodgy photo attempt.

Fortunately, 12,000ft mountains are much easier to photograph, as they tend to move more slowly than bears or moose. Hopefully some of the photographs will give a good idea of the scenery. I’m not sure that the pictures convey the scale of everything all that well, so if you don’t believe us you’ll have to come and see for yourself! (or check out the professional photos on www.rockymountaineer.com ).

The end of the first day brought us to the town of Kamloops. I think the town originally grew to support the railway, and although it still does this it also seems to be trying to establish itself as some kind of golfing destination (there is some flat ground!).

As with all things around here it’s BIG. The population is about 85,000 but these people are apparently spread across an area the size of New York City. One of it’s other big industries is the Rocky Mountaineer itself. It brings around 75,000 visitors every year (all of whom have an overnight stay), a number which is increasing every year to the extent that the Rocky Mountaineer company has recently bought one of the local hotels.

All of this (and the maintenance of the trains etc.) brings something like $30 million to the local economy each year. Maybe we should try this in England..... since the trains run so slowly anyway, let’s just make it a ‘feature’ and fill the trains with tourists!

The odd thing about driving in the big parks is that you seem to be able to drive for miles without seeing any traffic, but as soon as you arrive at a viewpoint or attraction there are dozens of cars there.

The Colombia Icefield was no exception, when we arrived at around lunchtime we discovered that most of the coach parties we’d seen during the morning had already arrived. Inside was semi-organised chaos, queues for the restaurants were out of the door and down the stairs, and the rest of the place was full of people wandering around aimlessly. All of this is one week before the end of the season, so it must get pretty bad in the summer.

What all of these people were waiting for, was for their turn to be taken up to walk around on top of the glacier, and it’s well worth the wait....despite the cold and blizzards!

After the magic of the glacier, there was more spectacular scenery and some elk to welcome us into Jasper. This was a lovely little town, still some shops geared to tourists as there were in Banff, but somehow it seemed more like a real town and for some reason it didn’t seem to be on the Japanese tour bus route. On the whole, a much nicer feel. We had a great little room with our own kitchen which meant that we could re-acquaint ourselves with home cooking once again which was a nice change from pizza!

Highway 93, The Icefield Parkway. 233 Kilometres of road, with one petrol station. Other than that, it’s just mountains, trees, lakes, glaciers and pull in areas to take photos of the scenery.

All you need to enjoy it are warm clothes, walking shoes, a camera, and of course your Japanese phrase book in case you need to communicate with 95% of the people you bump into along the way.

Apologies to those of you who are keeping up to date with the photos and may be finding some of them a little repetitive. Our only excuse is that you have to keep taking the pictures because you never know when you’ll get the ‘perfect’ shot that’s better than all the others you’ve already taken!!

This is an area to the west of Lake Louise so we went on a little tour to have a look as we had done Lake Louise in about half a day! This involved driving along the Kicking Horse Pass which was the other train route that we could have taken, but by doing it this way we were able to see the best bits of both.

The highlight of this route is the Spiral Tunnels which really are an engineering masterpiece. To reduce the gradient on a big hill, 2 spiral tunnels have been carved into the mountains to make the slope half as steep. The freight trains are extremely long and as a result, you are able to see the front of the train coming out of the tunnel, whilst the half way point of the train is still entering the tunnel and the end of the train is still passing in front of you. Sounds a bit anoraky (or should that be train-spotterish?!) but it made for some great pictures as right on cue a train arrived!

This was about all we saw on this day trip as many of the roads that we wanted to go up were closed due to the season, forthcoming snowfall and 'Bear Activity'. We made it to Emerald Lake which was pretty green although it was so cold up there that we didn’t hang around for a canoe ride!

Another slightly strange place. Yet more spectacular scenery as the backdrop to a blue-green coloured lake. But other than that, er, almost nothing.

The lake is about 5km up a hill from the town itself. At the lake there is one very expensive hotel overlooking the lake (think blokes in slightly ridiculous outfits waiting to park your car for you on arrival), and behind it another much older but much cheaper hotel (where we stayed).

Driving back down the hill to the ‘town’ however, we found the shopping mall (small supermarket, gift shop, camera shop, outdoor shop and a few cafes) and a load of hotel/lodge type places. Each of the hotels seemed to have it’s own restaurant which was open to the public, but other than that we could find nothing. No ‘high street’ with tacky gift shops, bars and restaurants, not even any sign of any local residential areas (which may have explained why the hotel staff seemed to live onsite).

The only other things we found were a small area of businesses that seemed to do tyres, exhausts & vehicle repairs, and an old station that had been turned into a restaurant (that was closed!). Fortunately we had only really planned to use the town as a base for a couple of nights while we explored the surrounding national park areas.

Pictures of this lake were probably one of the main reasons I always wanted to come to this part of Canada. Basically, if you’ve ever had a Fodors guide to Canada (or similar book with a picture of a lake and mountains on the front) it will quite likely be this one. It did live up to expectations, other than the fact that we chose to visit on a day when the temperature was probably edging to the wrong side of freezing. (Apparently the word Moraine refers to the rocks and dirt left behind at the edge of the glacier).

According to the guidebooks, using the Bow Valley Parkway (otherwise known as highway 1A) to travel between Banff and Lake Louise gives you a much better chance of seeing wildlife along the way. Clearly nobody told the bears and elk this, as we just about managed a squirrel along the whole route!

The scenery around Banff is at least as spectacular as you would expect, but the town itself is not really much different from any other tourist place. The same very friendly locals that we have met everywhere so far, but with the added attraction of groups of 30 to 40 Japanese tourists being led from one tacky gift shop to the next!

Banff National Park was a wilderness extravaganza - we saw Elk, Mountain Goats, Squirrels and Big Horn Sheep - and yes their horns are all knarled and curly, whether or not the more knarled and curly is a sign of wisdom v youth we are not sure but it didn't stop them stepping out into oncomming traffic! The scenery in the park is beyond words, hopefully the pictures will do it some justice.

The water in all of the streams, lakes and waterfalls was pefectly clear (and VERY cold!) as most of the water comes from glacier melts.

The drive from Calgary to Canmore (near Banff) took us through some spectaular scenery and up towards the rocky mountains ... the temperatures started to drop further from here on in.

The journey took us through an area known as Kananaskis Country. There is actually a small town called Kananaskis, but this just seemed to be some sort of mining operation surrounded by a few houses. Before reaching Kananaskis we passed through Peter Lougheed Provincial Park, this took us up pretty high into the mountains, which is where most of the really snowy pictures were taken. This day also brought our first encounters with some real Canadian wildlife.

We were probably the last to find out about Canmore, but just in case we weren’t.... A couple of people suggested to us that we stay in Canmore instead of Banff. It’s only about 14 miles away and it seems to be a bit cheaper at the moment.

We got a free upgrade on our hire car, which was from "Vauxhall Astra Sized" to "Vauxhall Vectra Sized". Now, few people are aware of Nikky's hatred of the Chrysler PT Cruiser, apparently it looks like the car used by the Anthill Mob in their pursuit of Penelope Pitstop. So of course, that's what we got, and in a nice subtle Electric Blue colour!! (she's soooo happy!).

You'll see from the photos that on our first day driving out of Calgary towards the mountains we actually got proper snow and rain. Not all that good for holiday snaps, but we tried.

We didn’t really suffer a great deal from any jetlag, but we’d booked three nights in the city just in case. Our first impressions of Calgary weren’t that great, but it wasn’t really a bad place to spend a couple of days.
Everyone we’ve met in Canada seems to be very friendly and helpful. It’s a bit like being in the north of England, complete strangers will say ‘Good morning’ to you in the street. This takes a bit of getting used to after living in the southeast of England, where everyone you pass in the street seems to size you up as a potential drug dealer or mugger!

Whereas some Canadian cities have networks of underground walkways to keep you warm and dry in the winter, Calgary has walkways up in the air. It’s called ‘+15’, because the walkways are 15 feet (or more) above the ground. It’s not quite as easy to get around as in Toronto because some of the walkways are only open from Monday to Friday, but if you wish you can walk from one shopping mall to the next without ever setting foot outdoors.

If you get bored of all the shopping you can get a coffee and take it into the garden. A place called Devonian Gardens that is. The gardens are up on the 4th floor between two shopping centres and it was a lovely place to sit and chill out and watch huge Koi and turtles. We spent a couple of hours here looking at the plants - not least of all, it was a break from the rain. There’s even a bit that is almost open air, but that wasn’t too much fun in the rain!

We didn’t do a great deal more in Calgary except walk around alot, but we did go up the Calgary Tower in the day and again at night as our tickets let us in as many times in the same day as we liked, at home you would be fleeced for another entrance fee. It was good to see the city from the air, although there wasn’t a great deal to see!

Downtown Calgary is largely a business and shopping area and there was a distinct lack of people for the majority of the time we were here. Where they all go we have not established but it made finding somewhere to eat a challenge as many places were shut. Whilst the people are overtly friendly, there isn't much of an atmosphere here and not a great deal to do unless clubbing is your thing ... a mixture of jet lag and age has ruled us out of this.

You may have noticed in some of the pictures that we have a travelling companion (just for the kids honestly!). Bagpuss will be joining in the fun on our trip - look out for him appearing and maybe doing the odd stunt!