Lesley and Stuart's Travels: Saturday August 12

At breakfast Anna and Eko appeared! There was much laughter and hugging, and they joined us at our table. They’re coming to the cowboy dinner event tonight too.

We went raft floating down the Bow River behind the hotel – for about 8km. This was fun, and the guy taking us was very knowledgeable. Unfortunately we saw no wild animals – perhaps it is too hot? The river flows quite fast in places but our boatman avoided the dangerous bits. It was so pleasant floating down and looking at the scenery as we went past.

know to the First Nation people as 'the buffalo'

On our return we walked into town to have lunch and to collect Stuart’s washing from the laundry. We wandered around, sat in a park to watch the beginning of a wedding, then we walked to the Cascades of Time Gardens behind the National Parks Admin building. It is a work in progress and will be lovely when finished.

old building now used by Parks Canada

We went to a couple of museums, one which was an impressive collection more than 100 years old of stuffed animals and birds. It was in the original building too, so it also was over 100 years old.

surveying display in one of the museums

some of the animals in the other museum

this what magpies in Canada look like, with lovely blue on their wings

We walked back to the hotel mid-afternoon. Lesley washed the clothes she’d been wearing because she was sweaty, and then we rested in our room for a couple of hours. We’ve noticed it getting smokier as the day goes on, after a lovely clear start to the day. Not sure if it means new fires or a change in the wind. The problem with these fires is similar to Australia in that Parks Canada is putting out fires and not letting them burn. More controlled burning is needed (or ‘prescribed’ burning, as they now call it because some fires got out of control!). The forests are too thick and need to be thinned to allow sun to the ground. But they have such big areas of forests that it is hard to manage. Anyway, this smoke doesn’t bode well for Anna and Eko on their continued trip, or for us on the train (The Rocky Mountaineer) which we get tomorrow for the next two days.

The cowboy/stampede night was a lot of fun. Three Scenic groups were treated to two guys playing and singing country music, and a nice feast of spit-roast beef, potatoes in jackets and alfoil, salad and beans, followed by apple pie. We danced, sang, and learned a line dance that we did twice to different songs. It wasn’t a late night, given that our group has to leave early in the morning to get the train.
We hugged Anna and Eko goodbye – we’ll see them on the 30^th.