Two week trip to Alberta, Canada.
Took off from Gatwick and landed in Calgary. We stopped in place called Cochrane. Cochrane is in Alberta and you can find out all you need to know on this wiki link. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochrane,_Alberta
The images below are from Quarry Lake in Canmore. Canmore is a beautiful town and you can find out more on this wiki link. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canmore,_Alberta
The Canadian flag in a brewing storm
Up a climbing frame in one of the parks of Cochrane
The Hoodoo Stones in a place called Drumheller, noted as a fossil cabinet. Lots of dino related bones and fossils can be found here. There is a very impressive museum in Drumheller. You can find out more on this link.
Walking across a suspension bridge, just for a view.
View from the bridge
View from the tuther side
View from the top of a hill on the tuther side
Random photo of trees in the sun
We were stopping at a lake side apartment for a few days at a place called Invermere and the lake is called Windermere. Read more about Invermere here.
It is a gorgeous place to chill and swim in the lake. We had amazing weather whilst we were there, in the 30's till late in the evening. At 8 in the evening the temp on the gauge would still register 30 degrees, But is was delivered in a way you could sit out and enjoy. Invermere is in BC and we drove through the national park and visited Banff and Lake Louise. Although we had our eyes peeled, we did not see any bears. One of our friends did see a bear and three wolves!!
Driving into Banff
This is the centre of Banff
This is the beautiful Lake Louise. We took a Canadian Canoe out on to the lake. It was lovely and peaceful.
This was a view driving from Lake Louise to Invermere.
When we were at Invermere we took a drive to some natural hot springs. They have quite a few in the area, but these have remained as natural as possible with just boulders and rocks separating the little pools. The pools remain a constant temperature even when the surrounding area is covered with snow in the winter. It was amazing when we were there, but you can only imagine what it must be like when all around you is covered with snow and you and sat in a steaming hot pool. People said that they went at night to sit in them and light candles which would also be a really nice way to spend an evening. The drive there was up a really off road track, but we wee in pickups and jeeps, so it could handle it. There was quite a drop off the road in a few places.
This is the lake at Invermere. Used for water sports of engined and self propelled varieties such as paddle boards, canoes and jet skis.
We went to the top of one of the mountains called Mt Swansea. At about 1700 metres it was high one, but there was a rough road that took us most of the way and we only had to walk the last 20 minutes. The only wildlife we saw was a little cheeky chipmunk. There was a selection of downhill mountain bike trails and you can find out more about them here.
The view from the top was spectacular.
We were just in time to see a couple throw themselves off the top. As it was the morning they had 15 minutes off flight time. In the afternoon they said they could be up for hours and travel hundreds of kilometres. They were a lovely couple and told us a bit about themselves. A training course to do a similar thing can be completed in a couple of weekends and they had been doing the sport for four years. It sure beats walking back down a mountain!
The cheeky chipmunk!
This was another lake just up form the hot springs. We visited here the last day of the trip to Invermere. The water was crystal clear.
This was the view on the drive back to Cochrane from Invermere. We went back a different way and the mountains were just as face slapping beautiful.
I am now Canadian.
