Day 15

An Ice Journey

Before we went out, I had tried phoning my Dad, but there had been no response, so I was a bit worried. We decided to go out anyway, and try to phone him again from wherever we went! So we drove off to Lake Louise.

It was very pretty, but was swarming with tourists. We went inside the posh Chateau Lake Louise (not overly impressed) and phoned my Dad from there. By now he was home and answered the phone, which was a relief! I used the toilet in the 'chateau' and it was the only toilet in the whole of the USA and Canada, including those in the wilds of national parks and such, that Didn't Have Any Toilet Paper!

We next got some gas and lunch rolls (not very nice) from Lake Louise Village, before turning up to the Icefield Parkway (and here). It's true what they say about this road - it is truly breathtaking! The lakes, the mountains, the glaciers - you just run out of superlatives to describe them! We stopped several times, but most memorably at the bottom of the trek to the Peyto Lake viewpoint. Heck, that was some climb - but it was so worth it! What an amazingly wondrous sight!

Peyto Lake

there were some tourists (Japanese) up there, with face masks like Jacko .....

We had already made up our minds, before we got to the Columbia Icefield, that we were going to take the Brewster tour onto the Athabasca Glacier, so we clambered up a million steps to the Visitor Centre (why on earth don't they put in a ramp or something?) and made our way directly to the Brewster desk. We clambered, almost immediately, onto the bus which took us to the snowthingie, which took us onto the glacier! Wow! Another amazing experience to add to the loads of other amazing experiences we'd experienced on this trip! The ice was slippy and there was a lot of holding on and screaching! It was hilarious when another busload turned up and there were Japanese tourists on there, wearing flip-flops!! It was freeeeezing cold, the wind fairly whipped around there! But we were so glad we'd done the trip!

Back at the Visitor Center, we looked around the shop, bought some drinks and then returned in the car and turned around back towards Banff.

We stopped at the Crossing for our dinner. Very nice it was too! Hub and I had steak and Paul had duck (boo to him!). And the view from the window wasn't bad!

By the time we got back to Banff it was late and almost dark - but we did a little shopping in the town before returning to our room - tired but happy.

Dead Man's Chest was full up!

Happy that was, until I took my shoe off and discovered that my ankle and foot had been bitten so badly that both had swollen dreadfully! I spent half the night with a cold flannel held to my ankle, in the hope that that might reduce the swelling. It didn't! Ah, such is life!

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[ Introduction ] [ Day 1 ] [ Day 2 ] [ Day 3 ] [ Day 4 ] [ Day 5 ] [ Day 6 ] [ Day 7 ] [ Day 8 ] [ Day 9 ]
[ Day 10 ] [ Day 11 ] [ Day 12 ] [ Day 13 ] [ Day 14 ] [ Day 15 ] [ Day 16 ] [ Day 17 ]
[ Day 18 ] [ Day 19 ] [ Day 20 ] [ Day 21 ]

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