(Sorry - forgot to take any footage of the gig/Canmore)

Somewhat behind the times, but oh well…

A few pictures from our ride back to Vancouver on the Greyhound bus. We discovered when we arrived at the station that we would only be allowed one item of luggage, and one carry on bag. Unfortunately we had about 3 of each, including guitars etc from the gig. What to do, what to do….. well, there’s nothing that gaffa tape can’t fix! So we taped everything together until technically we only had 1 item each. Luckily it turned out the bus was fairly empty and the driver wasn’t worried at all.

much of the trip looked like this. Grey clouds and lots of trees. Down through the Fraser river valley it was quite moody with lots of mist and hills etc.

The last part of the trip was nice as the plains opened, and the sun came out. Lovely. And then it took another 2 hours of little stops at various bus stations before we got home.

Canmore back to Kelowna. Super duper day, sunny all day apart from going over Rogers Pass.

Tons of pics, even more on my flickr if you’re keen.

We left Canmore early, in order  to give us enough daylight to get back to Kelowna. The Temp guage in town said -5, and it was very crisp and clear. I wonder if you’d ever get tired of the mountains if you lived here.

Getting up into the mountains in Yoho National Park, the temp dropped even more so we were guessing somewhere towards -10 deg. Veeeery cold…. and the heater in the van was struggling to put out any warmth. Luckily we all had sleeping bags!

The Field info centre is great, they have a whole lot of stuffed animals (in order of appearance: Wolverine (!!), Lynx and Black Bear). Each one had a bit of a story why they had to be shot, so they weren’t just random stuffed animals.

These bighorn sheep were just hangin out in Golden. It seems they just wander in like they own the place, and weren’t bothered by traffic at all.

Rogers Pass is the highest (??) pass we had to cross, and was still pretty icy from a couple of days previous when we came over it… much nicer and clearer to drive though.

Revelstoke is pretty much a 50% redneck small town, mixed with 50% upmarket ski town. wierd. This resteraunt has to have one of my fav names:

The poor lads were soo tired of travelling. luckily the wokin in time for the crazy canadian car was, with it’s blue and pink foam.

After Lake Louise we wandered down the highway to the town of Banff.

This is a wildlife bridge. There are about 15 of them between Lake Louse and Banff (about 50km), and they are quite elaborate… down to the trees growing on them. There’s a couple of tunnels too.

Banff. Classic mountain town… slighty over the top with the ‘you can tell you’re in the mountains because of our stone walls and wooden ceilings’ style interior decoration (think queenstown)…. but quite nice still… The last building is the Parks administration building for the national park… the equivalent of D.O.C. Very Nice.

Didn’t get any pictures or videos of the gig, sorry. Not much to it, but we were looked after very nicely by the Canmore Hotel, who had an excellent set up for bands, great stage and gear. You can’t see it in these pics as it’s around the corner.

Some panoramas from Lake Louise. They probably work best if you click through to flicker and view the original size.

Lots of photos…warning….

First, we woke up to a very cold morning in the camp ground, so decided to go for a walk. (well, to be accurate, Em & I did. The others stayed inside). We were glad we had decent sleeping bags - the inside of the van iced up overnight from the moisture of our breathing. The difference in temp between inside my sleeping bag and the air played havoc with my sinus’, so I got up at about 6:30am and had a shower…very happy to have an unlimited supply of hot water in the bathrooms.

Lake Louise is a short drive away so we drove up to have a look. Walking around the lakeshore to the other end has to be one of the highlights of my whole trip. A strange mixture of winter tourists visiting the lake, and those wealthy enough to stay in the Chateau (up to $1500 a night) were taking a stroll.

This is Matt’s snow angel.

12th Nov, Kelowna to Lake Louise.

Pretty damp day, but lots of snow and some nice nice views…. pity we couldn’t see much of the tops of the hills.

The main feature of the town of Golden is the nice bridge they have.

These bins are all over the place - they’re bear proof. You have to stick you hand in to unlatch it… apparently the bears can’t do that.

Lake Louise is in Alberta. It was cold, and a lot of snow on the ground. We were one of only two vehicles in the campground. I wonder why.

OK, so the next few posts will be a bit of a catch up, as I didn’t have time in the last while to upload things.

You can see the route on google maps here.

Tuesday 11 Nov. Vancouver to Kelowna, via Hope and Merritt.

Started early, and in the rain travelled to Hope…. which is most famous for being where they filmed the first Rambo movie. Nice.

Our first hurdle that we were slightly worried about in our VW van was the Coquihalla Summit which can sometimes be quite nasty. It was quite a lot of snow about but the road was pretty clear.

Coming out the other side, the change in weather was pretty amazing…. the little town of Merritt (country music capital of Canada, or so they say) didn’t have much going for it, apart from the great murals on the walls…

The hotel was great… as was the walk of stars… including the one and only Billy Ray.

Once again it was back up into the weather for the trip to Kelowna, in the Okenagan valley. It’s a 2 lane each way highway, but the snow and ice made it pretty scary… down to a lane each way, and the fog meant that we were travelling very slow, just to stay in the lane!.

If you lose your brakes, you can drive up into this. Not much fun, I imagine.

Stayed in Kelowna the night, and had a local delicacy - Burger Baron, 3 burgers for $4. Nice.

Next door, the dollar store didn’t seem to have a handle on how to write etcetera.