Monday – Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
I was up and at em quite early as I had a fullish day if Matt was correct. He had said get on the road early to miss the traffic. Here is a photo of the bright orange waterproof suit he gave me, probably good for the SES as well 🙂
I headed down to the bakery place, I intended getting some breakfast and posting a few days worth. It was very cold but it did not seem to stop these chaps, I saw quite a few on the way down.
The breaky was quite nice and I managed to post using my new method very easily, so as long as the photos are already uploaded I can do it anywhere.
After an hour or so I fuelled up and headed on up the main highway towards Lake Louise, I stopped after a short while to add another layer which I had forgotten to put on.
I cannot get away from construction zones, but I guess these roads are always in need of repair due to the freeze and unfreeze. It was not too long before I crossed into British Columbia where we had a 20 minute wait near a downhill creek 🙂
Just up the road is a place called Spiral Tunnels. The original railroad went down a very steep track and quite a few trains crashed and burnt. So, they modified the track and dug these big loop tunnels out of the inside of the mountain and this made all the difference.
The tunnels in the mountain itself were hard to spot, but apparently when the train is a long one you can see it going in and out of the tunnels and going in three different directions at once. The economy has slowed the traffic, so I saw no trains while I was there. Next stop just down the road was some waterfalls, this involved a side road and some wicked switchbacks. Now, the sign says if you are over 7m in length, drive up the first grade into the layby, then reverse up the second etc and continue in that fashion. Well, some wankers in long RVs decided they could turn the corners as normal either that did not bother to read the signs at all, idiots!! You will see what I mean on the way down.
I managed to fly by the idiot and get myself ahead of the traffic, the bonus of having a bike rather than a cage. Next stop a bit further on was the Emerald Lake, this needs no further description, it was an excellent view, spectacular, I will have to learn some new words soon 😉
Now, I have been seeing these road signs but cannot work them out, I think it is to do with ‘no overtaking’ but the driver is on the wrong side of the car. If the cars portray cars coming towards me, then fine, the drivers are fine, but why would I care about these signs, they are for the other direction??? I usually saw these when the oncoming traffic had an extra passing lane, so I am totally confused.
From here on in it was a short ride into the town of Golding where I looked around for a nice place to eat as I was a tad peckish. But I spotted an electronics shop and went in for a look, beauty, he had a DC-Dc laptop power adaptor, so now I can charge the lappy from the bike. I did have an inverter back home, but weight wise I left it at home, maybe I should have brought it, but too late now!
I was hoping to find a spot with free internet, but the place I did try had nothing on offer except great food, and guess what, I found a sausage roll, and it tasted absolutely fab 🙂 🙂 No meat pies though, but it is a start 🙂
From here on in it was a fast easy ride down to the town of Radium Hot Springs through the valley, it was about 100km or so and I kept an eye out for bears but I saw none, I am not sure whether I am glad or not 🙂
Here I fuelled up and headed back to Banff a trip of about 150km, I started by following a sports bike, we were hoofing it, but he soon cranked it open and took off 🙂 The scenery was as always ‘insert your own word here” 8)
Now, these funny bridges are used by wildlife, they are about 30m wide and as the roads have been fenced to restrict animal deaths, these bridges, as well as a lot of tunnels are used quite frequently and are a great success. They are building quite a few more and that is what all the construction was about near Banff itself.
I managed to get back to town for a quick drink and check email at the Wild Flour, also I posted a made up entry from last night which worked real well and saved a lot of time there. After that, it was back up to the camp, but on the way stop and look at the Hoodoos
Back in the camp ground there is a reminder about bears and what is safe from them.
So, I had some more noodles for dinner and watched this little squirrel run around madly. Eventually he dug under some ground and found a mushroom that had not come up yet and sat there eating it 🙂 The funny thing was, after that he ran up the tree to right of picture and after a few minutes came back down with a full grown mushroom in his mouth and headed off over the road to who know where?
I had a quiet evening writing up some more catch up on the blog. The camp ground was a lot quieter now as a lot of people had gone home.
Day 286 miles and 460 km
Trip – 25,830 miles and 41,569 km
Cheers
TravellingStrom
TravellingStrom 