I had heard that Banff is the S.T.D capital of Canada and that it's full of Aussies. For this reason, I have had no urgent desire to visit, besides the fact I don't fancy snowboarding and its not the season yet.
There are a million Aussies here, that's true. And yes they are all the young, ignorant, obnoxious ones that give all of us a terrible terrible rep. I wont tell all the examples I've seen already, but if you can imagine the 'Aussie Aussie Aussie' flag wearing bogans then you have a pretty good idea of the hostels here.
Apart from the Aussies and the busyness of the place, it's absolutely BEAUTIFUL!
So last time I was here, we were in Whitehorse. We had a great time there, and the people were amazing and friendly, but it was time to move on! Liam and I bought our Greyhound 'Discovery Passes' which is valid for 30 days. Its actually the last month Greyhound are offering these passes so we are quite lucky.
I was really really against getting this pass at first, but I soon realised that I have a small window of time before it gets way too cold to move around. The weather is changing fast here. The last few days it has been mid 20's and sunny. On tuesday it will be minus 11. What the fuck weather indeed.
So anyway, the job driving trucks down south fell through, as the chick decided that we should pay for fuel to drive HER trucks to Vancouver. So after politely declining, we bought our bus tickets.
We decided to head to Alberta, first stop being Edmonton, which is 28 hours away on the bus (yes this place is ridiculously big)
We had organized some couch surfing with this cool chick in an awesome apartment in a good area of town, and got shown around by another couch surfer the next day.
Edmonton is spread out like Adelaide, but the downtown is dirty, drug riddled, and not much fun to look at or be in. Cross the river though and things change. For a small population (1 million abouts) it has a great university and therefore attracts lots of intelligent young people. Also because of the oil sands, these guys are only paying around 110 a litre for petrol! Lucky ducks!
We only stayed two nights, then got on the bus again (only 6 hours this time) to Jasper, which is in the Rocky Mountains. WOW. I knew I would enjoy the Rockies, but this blew me away. The only problem is that unlike Banff, which is a lot bigger and busier and therefore has public transport to a lot of the hikes and trails here, Jasper is more remote and can be very difficult to explore without a car.
Lucky for us, on our first morning, we decided to save some money and walk the 7km to town. On the way down the hill, an Argentinian bloke and two Germans pulled over next to us and offered us a ride. Hitch hiking is pretty common here, so of course we said yes.
Rod, the Argentinian, dropped us all off in town and we said our good byes and headed to the post office to send postcards. Rod went in as well and we started talking again and he offered to take us around with him to Maligne Canyon, as he was already heading there. Well the canyon turned into a few more lakes, and before long we were making plans for the next day too. In total, he drove us around with him for 2 days. If it wasn't for Rod, we would not have been able to see half the things we did, and barely any of the trails and hikes we walked. He really made our trip. We made his too he said so it worked out well and it's so refreshing to meet people as funny and nice as him.
Although we only knew Rod for a few days, we spent a lot of time together and I could probably write a small book on his funny quotes and quirks. While walking a trail, we began talking about bears and cougars and other dangerous Canadian animals. Two minutes later, Rod (who was walking in front) started running at full pace past us screaming in his Argentinian accent "There is..........something!"
I looked up and saw something black running at full pace towards us and started running myself. I looked back and what did I see??? A black dog and a cyclist owner coming around the corner! We felt like right dicks, but our apprehension was warranted as 15 minutes later, we walked right towards a black bear and her two cubs! We waited a while and went around, slowly so the mamma didn't see us as a threat. Interestingly, as soon as the bears saw us, the two cubs ran straight up the nearest tree as fast as they could. It was amazing to watch...
So after some more hikes and mountain climbing, Liam and I headed for the bus to Banff and here we are!
Banff is only around four hours from Jasper. (Un) fortunately, there is a world heritage listed ice field between the two towns, and because of this, the greyhound doesn't go directly. So instead of a hour ride, we had a 15 hour bus trip back to Edmonton, south to Calgary, then west to Banff.
We are planning to hire a car on monday and head towards the ice fields and check out Lake Louise on the way. Can't wait!
That's as far as I can tell the story for now. I'll try and pop back when we get the chance!
Adios!
No comments:
Post a Comment