Again, we faced a day of blue skies and warm temperatures. Our next destination was Banff, which is only about 60 km away. Rather than head off, we went out to Lake Louise again. Again, there were plenty of people here, but we wanted to have a look inside the Fairmont.
The inside is less impressive than the outside - at 10:30am there wasn't anywhere to have a sit-down coffee other than a cafeteria. OK - time to leave.
We headed off. However, we took the Bow Parkway, rather than the faster Trans-Canada Highway. This is a delightful road, tracking the Bow River The road is lined by tall fir forests for the most part, with peaks lining both sides of the valleys.
Banff is a town inside the National Park, but is much larger than Lake Louise or Jasper. It has about 5000 inhabitants. So it has a downtown, multiple malls, many restaurants and clothing stores In fact, there are pressures because Parks Canada don't want the town to get any bigger. For many years, only "eligible residents" are able to live here - to be eligible you have to work in the town or the park or own a business here that requires your day-to-day attention.
We found a good place for lunch (Coyote Deli), before heading off to our accommodation. We also made a trip to the Safeway for supplies, as our apartment allows us to cook dinner. It was a relatively relaxed day - we were all feeling the weariness of the walk the day before. The heat of the day added to this - we even enjoyed a swim in the pool at our resort.
The next day (Friday) brought the same weather - blue skies and warm weather. We had a slow start and then headed out to the Banff Gondola.
The Gondola takes you high up to the peak of Sulphur Mountain, were you get a great view of the peaks around and Banff in the valley below.
Back to town for a Mexican lunch, then off to Lake Minnewanka (pronounced "mini-wonka"). This a large lake - it started small, but various dams up to 1941 progressively increased the size of the lake and made it a source of hydro-power.
We took a cruise of about 75 minutes on the lake. It was a good cruise, but not as scenic as that on Lake Maligne. Following this we continued on to Lake Jack, hoping to spot some wildlife. No wildlife, mainly because the places we found were clearly popular spots for picnics and even swimming for locals (mainly young people) on a late Friday afternoon.
Back to Banff to relax and then have a drink.
The inside is less impressive than the outside - at 10:30am there wasn't anywhere to have a sit-down coffee other than a cafeteria. OK - time to leave.
We headed off. However, we took the Bow Parkway, rather than the faster Trans-Canada Highway. This is a delightful road, tracking the Bow River The road is lined by tall fir forests for the most part, with peaks lining both sides of the valleys.
Banff is a town inside the National Park, but is much larger than Lake Louise or Jasper. It has about 5000 inhabitants. So it has a downtown, multiple malls, many restaurants and clothing stores In fact, there are pressures because Parks Canada don't want the town to get any bigger. For many years, only "eligible residents" are able to live here - to be eligible you have to work in the town or the park or own a business here that requires your day-to-day attention.
We found a good place for lunch (Coyote Deli), before heading off to our accommodation. We also made a trip to the Safeway for supplies, as our apartment allows us to cook dinner. It was a relatively relaxed day - we were all feeling the weariness of the walk the day before. The heat of the day added to this - we even enjoyed a swim in the pool at our resort.
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| View from Sulphur Mountain over Banff |
The Gondola takes you high up to the peak of Sulphur Mountain, were you get a great view of the peaks around and Banff in the valley below.
Back to town for a Mexican lunch, then off to Lake Minnewanka (pronounced "mini-wonka"). This a large lake - it started small, but various dams up to 1941 progressively increased the size of the lake and made it a source of hydro-power.
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| Devil's Gap - end of Minnewanka and end of the Rockies |
Back to Banff to relax and then have a drink.
On our last day in Banff, we caught up with the last few things we
wanted to do. We headed out to an area called Cave and Basin. This is what it
says – it is a cave that was initially found by three railway workers and which
contained a hot mineral spring pool and a subsequent pool or basin that was
created to allow people to “take the waters”. The springs bubble up through
cracks from far below Sulphur Mountain. Initial disputes over the ownership of
the springs and the value seen in such springs led the government to take over
the area and create Canada’s first National Park (the third in the world).
Later development included a 45m pool, then the largest in Canada. You can’t
swim here now, but the area is preserved as a museum of the first park. There
is also a small and very new museum detailing the internment near here of
European migrants as enemy aliens in WW1.
After a great lunch at Saltlik, we visited the local Whyte Museum of the
Rockies, which has excellent displays on the history and culture of the
Rockies.
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| Bachelorette Party at Banff |
We dropped our hire car at the Banff Springs Hotel and had a drink on
the terrace. This large pile is one of the great railway hotels, built to
encourage tourism in the 1920’s. It is built in a baronial style, with a great
view down the Bow Valley from the terrace.
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| More Banff party girls |
Back at our apartment, we found the place jumping. There were at least
four groups of women’s bachelorette parties, as well as a number of other
groups of women and also a couple of groups of men. They seemed to come here
for the weekend – from places east like Calgary and Red Deer.
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