Canada
23 days in September and October 2023.
For years I’ve had this vision in my head of driving through Canada in the fall, beautiful coloured trees, blue skies, cute little bear cubs playing on the roadside and then turning a corner to find a stunning coloured lake right in front of me. Well, it almost happened!
In the last couple of years, I’d seen an advert several times for a Rockies by Rail and Road tour advertised in the Caravan and Motorhome Club magazine on behalf of Alan Rogers Travel Ltd. I’d shown it to my partner and said this looks really good and at the same time I had planted the seed in her head (just like in the film Inception). So late in 2022 we decided to book the trip to see what Canada had to offer.
Banff.
We flew into Calgary from Heathrow, and our private transfer took us to the ‘Mount Royal Hotel’ in Banff. It was just amazing how flat looking farmland just became mountains; the drive visually was just like playing the Sega game ‘Outrun’ back in the late 80’s!
Having only a couple of days in Banff we had to ‘hit the ground running’ so to speak and deal with the jetlag later……This meant I was up well before the sunrise each day, watching the moon and the stars, whilst waiting patiently for the day to start!
On the first day we had a lovely walk along the Bow Falls Trail all the way to the Bow Falls viewpoint.
Then, via the Banff gondola we made our way up Sulphur Mountain so we could sit back and enjoy the amazing views!
We even found time to check in for our upcoming ‘Rocky Mountaineer’ Train journey!
Banff Day 2,
After a leisurely breakfast we had a nice, picturesque walk to the ‘Cave and Basin’ national historic site so we could enjoy the smells coming from the hot Sulphur pools and learn all about the endangered tiny snails that only live in these pools.
Still feeling very jetlagged we thought we could have a relaxing afternoon in the ‘Banff Upper Hot Springs’. To be honest it was disappointing. It was like a very large hot tub but without the bubbles and far too many people!
But on the plus side it did come with an amazing view.