Summer vacation in Canada

Last edited: 05/08/2012

Foto’s zijn in deze versie.
Pictures are in this version

Nederlandse versie: http://canadianivo.waarbenjij.nu/?page=message&id=4310006


Peopllleeeeee!
I'm on vacation! Yeah, and what a holiday. I was planning to announce beforehand that I would occasionally update my blog with the progress of my trip .. Oh well .. that eventually didn’t happen :D
I'll just start from the front and then you can read pages long what I have to say. Good deal or not?

Saturday, June 30:
For me a pretty chaotic day if I'm honest ... First up early to have to pack everything before Carla (sister) and William (dad) at 2:30 arrived at the airport. But as I said, it was chaotic day: First overslept, I was not so happy. Second, and probably the worst: the bus after the airport did not show up ... So I was more than half an hour late at the airport. And of course, WHAT a surprise, they sat in front of the plane, so they FIRST came out of the plane and through border corssing -. - So they were terribly worried that they could not find me ... Ow well, the way to the hotel was good and hotel was great! Even a 1 person bedroom had 2 double beds, so everyone could easily sleep in the room. In the evening we BBQed with my colleagues as farewell party for me and a few others. Was good, but parting was less fun: (

Sunday, July 1:
HAPPY CANADA DAY EVERYONE! If I say a little too late and most of you have no clue what I'm talking about :) Canada Day is the anniversary of Canada, so much celebration and fireworks (to which we have not seen because 2 had a jet lag..). That day we have watched Downtown and the University, also visited my workplace. Not much really by all out for dinner.

Monday, July 2:
Day started very well! We heard of the reception on Sunday that a taxi would come from the company that delivered the RV to pick us up at 7:30 .. Well, luckily we had already decided to get up at 6:30 to be ready on time. Because when I wanted to get our breakfast at 6:45 am at Tim Hortens (has a good croissant f.y.i.) was apparently the taxi already waiting and we were told that they would all leave at 7 .. Fortunately, Carla (who was still in the hotel room) already received a phone call with a call for us and she quickly packed our luggage... (really, one way or another this happens mostly with us ...) RV looks fine and drive well and we can fit everything perfectly. Only drawback is that the person in the back can only look through a glass-sided window, so quite sicolored, and only on the left side of the RV. Another major drawback was that we had breakfast at 11 am that day.. MY POOR POOR MEN STOMACH! Then drove right up to Banff National Park and at the campsite we did a few hikes. The place was FULL of flies .. But that was due to the ranch where we were and "nice" horses that did their needs EVERYWHERE.

Tuesday, July 3:
Tuesday we first drove to the town of Banff. It's actually funny town. Really a tourist village.. but ow well. We have also done a walk on Tunnel Mountain, where we have spotted our first wild animal! A Whitetail Deer if I'm not mistaken. Another nice thing was that halfway during our hike we saw a nice rain storm coming .. So we quickly went to see the top and went down even quicker. Fortunately, the eye of the storm passed us and when it was raining bad we had good shelter. Then we drove to Johnston Canyon, which were mainly 2 large waterfalls (called the Lower and Upper Falls). And the Upper Falls was high enough, BOH .. Then we passed Lake Louise (since we come back here at the end) and we drove further north (towards Jasper). We have first seen the Bow Lake, one of the huge lakes that was lovely blue. Then go to Peyto Lake, that was located at about 2,000 meters altitude. Finally, we have a little walk to the Mistaya River Valley for another waterfall. We stayed the night at the campsite at Waterfowl Lakes.
What I need to say here is that the road we drove along was really beautiful, the way was (for Dutch standards) very high, if I may estimate between 1200 and 2000 meters and the view was beautiful. All around you high mountains with glaciers, rivers and lakes. But we ALSO found out the same day that most sites in the national parks do not have electricity or (worse still) running water ... We were all days that we stayed in Banff or Jasper National Park closed off from the outside world. Owww, radios and telephones almost never do it ..
Owyeah, and for animal tracking we saw that day a black bear, close to the road and was eating (very nice!), a grizzly bear, but of course at a distance, but I have (reluctantly unfortunately) made him flee when called for my dad for a picture when he I found him between the bushes XD. We have also seen other deer, but do not remember which ...

Wednesday, July 4:
On Wednesday we drove further north towards Jasper. But Jasper National Park is quite a lot different than Banff National Park. Biggest difference is in height. Jasper is really high in the mountains, sometimes almost at the level of permanent snow (and that level is considerably higher than in Europe!) First point on enormous height was the Athabasca glaciers, where you could already reach the snow / ice layer (if they did not close it for safety ..) Then followed the road further north to, among others, the Sanwapta Falls and Athabasca Falls. Finally, we did a walk to the Valley of 5 Lakes, so as the name says, a valley with 5 fairly large lakes that were very close together. Most beautiful was the color green that they had, really not know how to call it or how to describe it .. But it was nice :)
Overnight at the Wapiti campground where we could for the first time (since our possession of the camper) take a shower! :D

Thursday, July 5:
Thursday we have an extra day in Jasper National Park around charged. On this day we drove to Maligne Lake. Along the way we went for a walk in the Maligne Canyons, where we went over 5 bridges with 4 major waterfalls (5th bridge was not so much over a waterfall, but was still fun :) ). Water flowed really hard! And the water was high!?! Apparently there was much snow melted coming down Oh well, on the other hand I really don’t mind it :)
Then came along Medicine Lake where the water was already so high was that even a ladder toward the lake was partially flooded. Funny and yet strange and mysterious to this lake is that in August it almost deflates! It turns out that there are cracks in the ground that carry water underground. However, because these cracks are not big enough for all the melt water in spring and summer, there forms a lake on top!
Finally we arrived at Maligne Lake, a tall, beautiful blue and gigantic lake (22km long!), Which is surrounded by very high mountains. Here we made an hour walk and walked back along the lake. Funniest was the high water level, the floor of a house on the water where you could rent canoes was completely under water! They had to put down pallets to ensure that you do not got wet feet. XD Unfortunately, it was by then already passed 5 and we could no longer take the boat :( Would have been nice.
On the way back we saw have a very large Elk (second largest cervid),it had especially really large antlers! I think if he put up his neck he would be longer than I am :S
Afterwards we went into Jasper and it’s center. Some houses were really such typical buildings for this area, you know, you often see them in films.
That evening we stayed the night in Wapiti.

Friday, July 6:
After we got up early, we went for a walk just outside of Jasper towards a viewpoint of the region. The mountain .. hill .. however you call it .. was just high enough to have a 360° view around you and have a wonderful overview of the park. Then we drove to Mount Robson, which is the second highest mountain in this part of the Rockies with a peak of almost 4000m. Best was that on the lookout point along the highway you had a beautiful field of flowers towards the mountain. Even this guy could really appreciate the beauty of it :)
Then we drove to Clearwater already a long way to the southeast. However on the road to it there wasn’t a lot to see execpt a LOT of trees and high hills. So I can’t really tell you much about it..
We stayed in (OWYEAH!!) The Dutch Lake Resort & RV Park. Really, wherever you go you see the impact we have on this huge world. Sometimes I am really proud of my country :')

Saturday, July 7:
On Saturday we went to the Wells Gray Provincial Park just north of Clearwater. Here we saw mainly 3 large and beautiful water view. First there was the Spahats Creek Falls, where the water fell down in 2 stages, however the best part was that here you could see how deep the canyon was of the river over the centuries had worn. The gap was at least 120 meters deep while the river did not drop that much water. (When I saw I really wanted to try bungee jumping here .. unfortunately could not :( ) Then there was the Dawson Falls, where water only went 20 meters down, but does have a width of 90 meters! The Helmcken Falls was the last waterfall that rushes down 140 meters, with the best part that the rock wall at the waterfall is almost 90° perpendicular to the mouth of the waterfall. Very strange and beautiful to see, especially because you could see well how far such a cascade can be pushed forward by the power and speed of the river. We also tried a walk to the top of a mountain (hill, whatever), but we reversed halfway for 2 reasons: first, what I think wasn’t that a big deal was that the road was muddy and watery, giving you some pieces by muddy rivers which you have to walk into, and secondly that even with anti-mosquito stuff we were eaten alive by the mosquitoes o.O
Finally, we drove to Clearwater Lake, that (gee, would be something else) a huge lake where we could enjoy a little paddle. The disadvantage of paddling was that the water but only a few degrees.. So you got cold feet very quickly in it .. Did it anyway because it was quite nice in some way :)
Afterwards, Carla and went with a canoe on the Dutch Lake for an hour, I really liked to do it, just floating around in the water.. niiiiccceee :)
And again overnight at Dutch Lake.

==================================

Ooh, forgot to mention: on Friday I also swam in the lake. Aah, was it nice to swim again! Only disadvantage: water on the surface already still quite warm, but something like half a meter deeper was water only a few degrees ... So unfortunately I could only swim for a while :( Even bigger disadvantage, because I held my head a.. few? (A).. times underwater, I had a huge headache when I came out of the water due to the sudden big temperature changes... So uhm.. Folks, don’t copy this idiot :P
Ow and one more thing: I deleted a lot of pictures from old reports because I can only upload 150 pictures on this site and I was slowly reaching my limit..


Sunday, July 8:
Sunday we moved on in search of the sea. Alon the way we first went to 108 Mile Ranch. This is a museum(?) where people used to come during the Cariboo Gold Rush around 1860. Fun part about this place was that they had rebuild the houses from the time of the cowboys. Was very nice to see those wooden houses :) They even had an ice house, where they stored the ice they collected from the adjacent lake under a layer of earth. Even better, I FINALLY bought a cowboy hat! That’s one thing I don’t have to worry about anymore before departure :)
Furthermore, we drove through Lillooet to Whistler, where not much was special to see. What was special was the temperature changes that we came acros that day: At Clearwater and at 108 Mile Ranch it was around 30 degrees, warm but to good. In Lillooet, however, it was around 37 degrees or even warmer! Boh, what was that HOT .. The environment there even looked like a savanna (with the difference that a few hundred meters higher on the mountain forests were just normal ..). A little further on, on a mountain road to Whistler, we arrived at one point almost in the snow .. Would not surprise me if it was there only between 5 and 10 degrees would be .. Whistler was pretty mild weather, around 22 degrees and you could already notice that you approached the sea. I have to guess most of the temperatures, cause we have anything to read the temperature on the road.
Stayed the night on a campground in Whistler.

Monday, July 9:
In the morning we first went into Whistler to view the center of the village. You could clearly see that the village was renovated for the Olympic Winter Games of 2010. It really didn’t look like other villages we had been to, but it wasn’t bad at all. It really looked like a village at a super deluxe skiresort.
Then we drove to Vancover and the sea. Funny thing was that the first time I saw the sea, it really looked like one of the many huge lakes we came across. It was apparently a distant sea cove. Unfortunatly we noticed that it was quite hazy, so we couldn’t see far over the sea. The sea which we drove past that day was like a mirror, because of the many islands (like Vancouver Island) that blocked the waves.
From Horseshoe Bay, we took the boat to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. The wind was really SUPER hard on the boat, it felt like wind speed 8 or something, I really enjoyed that :) The mystery on the boat was that you couldn’t see Vancouver Island for a long time because it was so hazy. I was seriously wondering whether we were going in the right direction, and if we did, how awful far that island would be from the coast.
Oh, and you know what’s a fun fact?: The surface of Vancouver Island fits for 3/4 in the Netherlands :O
We spent the night in Campbell River next to a strait, which had veeeeeery many totem poles. We also saw a very large cruise ship sailing along the strait.

Tuesday, July 10:
Been in Strathcona Park. We drove almost exclusively along the lakes in and outside of the park. Water was still cold, but slightly warmer than in Clearwater Lake, but still not good enough for swimming (unfortunately). They were really 3 HUGE lakes, could almost say that they sat together and were another sea cove if the lakes weren’t so high up... We saw another couple of waterfalls, of which the last (Myra Falls) was the most fun, simply because I could jump, climbing and scrambling over the rocks at the waterfall! Was fun you know! :D
The way back was was quite .. bumpy .. since we took another road to the dam for Upper Campbell Lake (middle of the big lakes), but then we thought the normal, asphalted road would continue further on. In retrospect, this was pretty stupid to think that, cause there were gigantic lakes between us and the road we came from without bridges. Eventually almost took 3 hours before we covered 31 kilometers on that road, and believe me, we were all quite shaken :P
We spend the night again in Campbell River, but this time we didn’t see a boat, but a lot of eagles! Even better yet, you could get as close as 10 meters to them! :)

Btw, pictures are added, please see the photo department of the English report.

==================================

Wednesday, July 11:
Afterwards we went drove to Tofino, which is one of the few places on the west coast of Vancouver Island. We drove first to Cathedral Grove, which is a rainforest in the middle of the island with HUUUGGE and extremely old trees. One of those trees was around 9 meters in circumference and 78 meters high! Afterwards we drove to the coast, with not much to see meanwhile. But when we finaly arrived at the coast, wow, what an amazing view we had!! There were so many beautiful gray clouds everywhere, which made the vision at least 500 meters!! Most beautiful about it was that it only was on the coast. We were so extremely happy about that -.- Yeah, right.. We could have had such a beautiful view on that road, and we saw completely nothing… so that was a complete bummer. Luckily the sky cleared in the evening so we could still almost see the sun set in the ocean (it went down between a few islands unfortunately).

Thursday, July 12:
Then we drove, again through the fog, towards Victoria. On the way there we first went to see Nanaimo, where we initially arrived with the boat. We didn’t see much special there. If something the water planes and the stone balancing artist was nice to see.
Then we drove to Chemainus, where the center was filled wall paintings. Mostly was about the time when the first Europeans came to live on the island.
Also went to Duncan, where the center was filled with totem poles, en yes, there were a LOT of totem poles.
Other than that we drove straight to the camping in Metchosin (part of Greater Victoria, but was an half hour outside of the real Victoria, which is included driving over a highway). Funny thing was that on the campground we could play pool for free! So I gladly took advantage of that :)

Friday, July 13:
On Friday we went to the center of Victoria. Here we first saw the British Columbian Parliament Building, which looked more like a palace for a royal family then a parliament building. Almost next to it was the famous Fairmont Empress Hotel, a 5 starred hotel which apparently still serves High Tea around 5. Other than that the funniest thing to see was the Christmas Village, where you could buy HUGE amounts of Christmas stuff. Funniest thing was that the owner was originally from Germany. So there you have it, you still celebrate the best Christmas in Europe :D
After that we went whale watching!! We went into a zodiac (for the unknowing: that simply said a uncovered rubber boat) with 450 hs!! Meaning we got a lot of speed on sea and we even had the wind blowing towards us. At the end I had a coupe de ravage cause of it which I couldn’t even get rid of with a wet hairbrush. But it didn’t look that bad, looking at the Dutch mode for guys to put gel in your hair. The one thing that was a bit disappointing was that the sea was again like a mirror, so I couldn’t really enjoy the waves on the boat :(
Ow yeah.. You probably also wanna know which animals I saw right.. Well alright then. (Unfortunately) we only saw orcas, but we did see about 5 of them quite a few times. We mostly saw them from a distance with only the back and fins coming above the surface. But 1 time (although from a large distance) we saw an orca jump out of the water! Also at a certain time we saw a young orca, that very cute slapped his tail many times against the surface. You would almost think he had trouble going underwater. Also that young one and his mother came really close to the boat, they even were a brief moment a time that the mother was on the left side of the boat and the young one on the right! That was so beautiful!
And then the day was almost over, so we went back to the camping in Metchosin. But in the evening a BIG thunderstorm passed over the camping, a lightning strike even hit a building super close! What a bang did that give!!

Saturday, July 14:
On Saturday we didn’t really do anything special. We drove through downtown of Victoria to drive across the coast (and there were such big and expensive villas there?!? THEY ARE SO BIG!!!) towards Sidney (no, not Sydney in Australia.. but Sidney north of Victoria) to get the boat towards Vancouver. Aaaaannnddd, that’s about it..

Sunday, July 15:
On Sunday we went to downtown Vancouver. The day started bad, with firstly a lot of drizzle that later on turned into a rain shower. This made the view very limited..
We first went to the Canada Place, where cruise ships are harbored, the roof looked somewhat like the Sydney Oprah House and inside the building was a 5 starred hotel where the main hall looked like the inside of a cruise ship. Funny thing was that 1 of the cruise ships harbored there was the Statendam from Rotterdam :D
When we came outside it was finally dry and the weather slowly turned for the better, and even at a certain moment it cleared enough for us to see the mountains nearby. Then we walked to the Gastown, where at an intersection stands an old English clock, which blows out steam for a few minutes every 15 minutes. Then we walked to Chinatown, where I saw my first real Chinese guarden! Was a little on the small size, but was still beautiful. Unfortunately, we wanted to see more of Chinatown and Japantown, but when we went deeper we saw more and more junkies and as tourist we felt less and less comfortable. We even saw a drug injection stuck in a tree :S
Furthermore we walked to Stanley Park, which apparently has 80 kilometers on roads :S We only saw a small part of the park, including a lighthouse and a group of totempoles.
But yeah, we actively walked that day over 4 hours, plus at least an hour just standing if not walking. So we were exhausted at the end and were glad we arrived at the RV. Ow, funny fact: this is the first day we DIDN’T drive with RV but took the public transport.

Monday, July 16:
On Monday we went to see some parks: the Capilano Provincial Park and the Cypress Provincial Park. At Capilano we did a walk through the Capilano Suspension Bridges. It was a (paid unfortunately) walk where you could walk across a canyon with over a suspension bridge and walk high up in the trees on a treetop walk. Was fun to do, especially the stamp collection adventure (A).
Afterwards we went to Cypress, where apparently is a ski resort that was used during the Olymp. Winter 2010. Well.. now it’s pretty much snowless as you can imagine. Here we went to Bowen Viewpoint (or something), where we had a beautiful view of the gigantic sea cove that is located in the north west of Vancouver. Finaly we went to an other RV-park in Vancouver, since the first one looked like a (Dutch) gypsy park in the middle of a poor neighborhood, where the bathrooms looked like they were barely cleaned and maintained and where even the internet was shut down at 10 PM.. (btw, 10 o’clock is early for us, since we usually only done with the dishes by 9) We are now in way more up north and in a MUCH richer neighborhood, where they I could even enjoy myself with some basketball (alone maybe, but that didn’t bother me).
And the best moment was on the way to the park, where we saw a black bear walking carelessly on the sidewalk in the middle of a residential area!! Super funny :D

Owyeah, almost forgot: If you click on the small map in the right top of this blog you will go to a page where the traveled route is shown. You can easily see where everything is there.

===========================================

Tuesday, July 17:
Tuesday we left Vancouver and went back to the east. Here we first stopped at Fort Langley, where they rebuilded a fort from 1860. They even showed us how they made barrels in that time, lighted a fire and explained us how the blacksmith does his job.
After that we drove to Minter Gardens, a big garden with a LOT of flowers. Was nice to see an other scenery than mountains and lakes all the time :)
Finally we drove to Harrison Hot Springs. Here we firstly laid ourselves comfortable on the beach and swam in the little lake. I also jumped in the 60 km long lake, and that was COLD!!! I stayed in for maximal 30 seconds and I felt the cold running through my spine :S But it was worth it, now I can say that I did it :D Afterwards Carla and I went into the public pool, which also was a hot spring. Well, it wasn’t a classical hot spring.. it was a covered pool where the water was between 30 and 35 degrees. It was nice and warm, but it lakked the outside air and real warm temperatures. Then again, Harrison Hot Spring in general is a bit disappointing: it had just 2 hot springs, where 1 is a spa and the other that pool…
In general it was a day we didn’t have much till now: a quiet and relaxed day. It was nice.

Wednesday, July 18:
Wednesday we first drove to the Othello Tunnels near the village of Hope. They made tunnels here for the railway, that is now closed due to the bad weather conditions that kept damaging the rail. It was funny to walk through those tunnels, especially because they weren’t sealed with concrete, which made water drip from the ceiling to the floor.
Next we went to Hope itself, which is known as the Chainsaw Carving Capital of Canada, with over 50 beautiful wooden statues, and as Rambo Village, since the first Rambo movie (First Blood) was shot there.. but that wasn’t interesting.
Furtheron we came across the Hope Slide, where a gigantic landslide had takes place which made a big part of a mountain come down. A part of the valley floor was raised up to 70 meters because of it.
We also stopped near Cascade Lookout in Manning Provincial Park (P.P.). We had a beautiful view off the mountains in the area. Funny thing was that a sign showed which mountains were still in Canada and which were already in the USA. Also very cute here was that there was a squirrel that didn’t seemed scared of anything and came really close while eating a flower. Was so cuuuuttteee!!.
Aaaaannndd then we came back to the dry and hot area between the Columbian Mountains and the sea. So again a barren landscape, with the sun shining towards you with 34 degrees. We stayed the night in Twin Lakes.

Thursday, July 19:
On Thursday we firstly drove towards a winery nearby Okanagan Falls. The winery itself was closed, but we had a beautiful view of the surroundings.
Then we drove to Kelowna and took a stroll along the harbor and the park near the water. Funny thing was that this city reminded us of a European coastal city. A lot of hotels looked similar to those in the EU, a lot of boats (ofcourse), but also the rest, don’t know, really reminded me of Europe.
Then we drove to Vernon and went in a bit, but wasn’t really interesting.
Afterwards we went to Craigellachie, where they drove the last spike for the railroad between east and west Canada.
Also visited the Three Valley Hotel, which was a beautiful hotel!!! From the outsite atleast.. Behind it was also a ghost town, but we didn’t pay much attention to it.
In the evening we went to see Revelstoke, where a Country band happened to play live. They had good music I must say.

Friday, July 20:
Happy birthday to ME!!! Yep, I turned 21 Friday! :)
What were my gifts? No idea, think I can count this trip as a gift :)
Back to topic! We first went to Mount Revelstoke, where we did a few walks. Funny thing was that there was still quite a lot of snow aaaannndd Carla and I walked through that snow with our sandals. Outside temperature wasn’t bad, but the snow was still cold for your feet!
Next we went to Glacier National Park (N.P.) where we.. did amazing numbers of walks!!! Of 500 meter max.. XD Ow no, excluding 1 that was return 5 km. It was more like: Getting out to walk, start walking… ow, we’re already back… 2 minutes driving and return to step 1… We didn’t see anything extremely special, it was mostly the usual: waterfalls and forest that looked like rainforests.
In the evening we went for diner in a “Italian” restaurant in Revelstoke. It tasted really good, butuhm.. we’re still in Canada so the Italian didn’t really belong here :P Plus they put a lot of German yodeling music on…
Owja, also fun to say: When we arrived back in Revelstoke, it wind started blowing HARD and it also started raining EVEN HARDER.. It really POORED!! Wow.. There was even (by the time we came back to the campground) a power outage, apparently a tree fell on top of a power cord.

Saturday, July 21:
On Saturday we drove from Revelstoke to Lake Louise. Here we spend most of the day in Yoho N.P.. We first went to the Wapta Falls. But we first had to walk up and back for 2,4 km. The waterfall itself was really wide and had, stragely enough, a giant rock RIGHT at the foot of the waterfall, which made the water bash against it when it reached the bottom. Why is this strange? Because usually waterfalls first erode those rocks away before pulling itself back.
Afterwards we went to the Natural Bridge, where a small waterfall is falling through a big slit, causing a connecting plate on top of the waterfall.
Then we drove to Mineral Lake, that was colored as beautiful turquoise. We did a walk there around the lake of about 5,4 km. Fun thing was that because of the high water level, the back site of the lake became VERY marshy which made it impossible to get passed it with dry feet/shoes .
Then we went to the Takakkaw Falls, which is the 2nd largest waterfall in all of Canada (254 meters high). And ofcourse the ABSOLUTE BEST was that you could almost stand underneath the waterfall if you dared!! What meant ofcourse, that this guy wanted to go REEAALLY close to the falls and get EXTREMELY wet!!! AAAANNDD I succeeded!! :D Only “disadvantage” was that the moment I came close to it a HEAVY windgust came from the waterfall, making sure that I couldn’t see much AND I was already SOACED in like 5 seconds, including my underwear XD
We stayed the night in a overflow campground near the town Lake Louise.

Sunday, July 22:
Sunday we first went to the lake Louise, since apparently it is already so buisy after 11 that you can walk over the heads (not that that would be a problem considering our lengths, but you get the point). It was nice to see, but I personally don’t know why this is the most photographed lake in the Rockies. I think Moraine Lake was a LOT more beautiful where we went to next. Simply because this lake was beautiful blue and also was in a beautiful location. It was completely surrounded by mountains with peaks over 3000 meter!!! (the lake itself was at 1885 meter) It was also called the Valley of 10 Peaks because of 10 of those high peaks that surround the lake. Here we did a walk to the Consolation Lakes. Funny thing was that there are actually 2 lakes, but they have over flown in each other due to the high water levels everywhere. For me it was really fun because due to a stone avalanche in 2003 there are now a lot of rocks in the lake and its river. So I could hop from one stone to another :)
Afterwards we drove to Kootenay N.P.. Here we first went to the Continental Divide, where the border is between BC and Alberta. Apparently there was a huge fire there over 50 years ago and you could really see how the forest regenerated itself over the years. We also saw a few funny birds behaved like chickens: fat and barely flying. No idea what they are called.
We also went to Marble Canyon, where there is a waterfall and a river at the bottom of a canyon. But we discovered here that a lot of roads and viewpoints were closed due to avalanches and extremely bad weather from the past weeks. So we couldn’t see a lot of things that should be nice to see in Kootenay.
We spend the night at a campground near Radium. At night there was a small performance for young and old about the geology of the park. Why also for the young? Because Harriet Potter gave us a course on Geomagic and we all started searching for a wand to travel through time with, a stone to let us live forever and a cloak to make the surroundings hot or cold. The way they let the audience participate with the play was a lot of fun.
A bit later that evening my dad and I made a small fire in a firepit. I even had the honor to lumber the wood! It took a lot of effort, but it was fun to do again. Also, when the night fell, there was a crystal clear sky that night, so you could see thousands of stars!!! Was so beautiful!!

Monday, July 23:
Monday was a somewhat less active day that usual. We mostly drove with the RV. We stopped in Kimberly, what (to attract tourists) made itself a Bavaria city. Some houses in the city center really looked like old German buildings and they even yodeling music :D Only thing I should have commented them on was the Apple Strudle… No, not the Apflestrudel, but the Canadian version (not that I’ve tried it..). I really wondered how they would pronounce the German word properly.. :D
Furtheremore we stopped shortely in Cranbrook and then went to Fort Steele, where they almost rebuild (of kept intact, maybe mix of both) an entire village from around 1870. Funny to see (even though again) how they lived back in the old days.
We stayed the night in Sparwood.

Just quick an announcement: I will probably post the last update of this vacation by the time I am back in the Netherlands. I am already leaving the 27th (arriving the 28th) and I don’t expect to mave much time left in the mean time to update everything else.
For everyone in the Netherlands: I’m expecting a huge amount of people who welcome me back with open arms at Schiphol, and who shower me with gifts because I’m finally back in the Netherlands and to give me my birthday presents!!!
And for the people in Canada (Calgary in particular): I will be back in Calgary the 26th for my last day in Canada, so if anyone wants to meet up, then you should have my phone number by now.

============================================

Tuesday, July 24:
On Tuesday we drove to Waterton N.P.. What makes What makes this park so beautiful is that it is located exactly at the beginning of the Rockies, making that you first have the prairies and then all of the sudden the Rockies begin.
Here we first went to the Red Rock Canyon. This canyon is exactly as the name says: completely filled with red rocks. Very beautiful to see, even more fun to climb through it and finding your way :)
Afterwards we went to the village of Waterton. There wasn’t much to see in the village itself, but just outside of it there was a hike to the Bears Hump. Here you had a beautiful view of the prairies and the beginning of the Rockies.
Finally we stayed the night just outside of the park.

Wednesday, July 25:
On Wednesday we first drove back to the Waterton N.P., because we hadn’t seen everything yet. We first went to the Buffalo Paddock, where there was a small herd of buffalo. Luckily for us the herd was at that moment very close to the road, so we had to drive past them at a certain moment and one buffalo was less than 5 meters away from us! For me, as photographer, it was pretty scary, cause those animals are huge!
Afterwards we drove to Cameron Lake, also in the Waterton N.P. where we did 2 short hikes.
We went then to Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, where I have been before. Then we drove to Okotoks to stay the night.

Thursday, July 26:
Thursday was officially my last day in Calgary :(. That day we first went to deliver back the rented RV, and then went into the Calgary Tower. This is one of the highest buildings in Calgary (although by far the highest). You have a good view from there on Calgary, although it was kind of cloudy and hazy, so you couldn’t really see far :(
Then I personally went back to the university and to my old home to say goodbye again to everyone, so I don’t really have much to tell you anymore.

Friday and Saturday, July 27 and 28
Uhhmm, safely arrived at the airport, saw Roos and her sister pretty fast, so that was nice. Flying home went pretty good, except quite a lot turbulences, but ow well. And my brothers where already at Schiphol eagerly waiting for me to arrive, while I arrived a half hour earlier! :O Isn’t that sweet!

And that was it for our trip in Canada. The adventures has eventually come to an end. For everyone that read everything: I am very proud of you! You read in total 10 pages of quick type work. I hope you enjoyed reading it. I anyways enjoyed writing and making such beauty.