Heather & I finally made a trip to Canada together! We were there for a month....29 days to be exact.....and our trip coincided with a heat wave that lasted for almost the whole 4 weeks. Our journey began on Wed night 15 July when we flew from Adelaide to Sydney after work and stayed in Cremorne with Lee Dawe. On Thursday morning at 10:25 am we flew with Air Canada on their new direct flight from Sydney to Vancouver which took only 14 1/2 hours; this was much better than the previous system of stopping over in Honolulu at midnight for about 2 1/2 hours!!! Thanks to the International Date Line, we arrived in Vanouver on the same day (Thur 16 July) but about 3 hours before the time we flew out of Sydney....sometimes it's nice to go "back" in time.... especially at the start of a holiday!!!
Our trip plan was to hire a car and do an anti-clockwise self-drive tour of southern BC. Here is a diary type summary along with some photos to help show where we went and what we got up to. I hope you enjoy this way of sharing our trip highlights:
- Our Canada holiday started by spending 4 days with Jamie & Cathie Newman, who live in South Surrey near Whiterock, to see the sights of Vancouver. Our Vancouver highlights included the University of British Columbia (UBC), Kitsalano Beach, cycle tour of Stanley Park, dinner at the Boathouse with Jamie, Cathie, Jamie's older brother Ted and his partner Sandy, a gondala ride up Grouse Mountain and dinner at Heather Walker & Ron Gillies' new house in Lynn Canyon.
Heather standing outside a Haida longhouse with ceremonial totem poles.
- On Monday afternoon (20 July) we set off driving eastward through Hope & Princeton to Osoyoos to stay with my brother Danny and his partner Donna where we had very warm weather which topped out at 40 deg C the day before we departed! While staying in Osoyoos, Danny & Donna took us on a ~5 hour float down the Kettle River (we went very slowly because I took lots of photos!) which was a real treat for Heather since Australia doesn't have many rivers like this!
- On Thurs afternoon (23 July) we said our goodbyes and left Osoyoos travelling easward through Grand Forks, Castlegar and Nelson before staying the night in a motel in Creston. The next day we set off for Banff via Cranbrook which is where we missed an important turn-off and ended up doing a 2-hour side-trip to Fernie !! Once we got back on track, we drove through Invermere, Radium Hot Springs and Vermillion pass to Banff which is where we arranged to meet Patty Lewis for drinks and dinner at ~6 pm on the Friday night (24 July). Thanks to the 2-hour Fernie navigational mishap plus losing another hour due to entering the "Mountain Time Zone" we arraived at 8:40 pm and almost 3 hours late...but we still had drinks & dinner at the Rose & Crown!
- The next "perfect weather" day started with a soak in the Banff Upper Hot Springs followed by a gondala ride up Sulphur Mountain for spectacular 360 degree aerial views around the Banff area. Then we went to the Fairmount Banff Springs Hotel for a self-walk tour of the outside & inside of this spectacular "old world" building! This was followed by a tour of Bow Falls and the 18-hole golf course (looking for Elk but we didn't find any...where have they gone?) before we said goodbye to Patty and set off for Lake Louise at about 4 pm! Our original plan was to spend the whole day driving the "Icefield Highway" to Jasper but this wasn't going to happen now! We ended up getting and excellent room and full breakfast deal at the Lake Louise Inn so we modified our itinerary and spent the remainder of the day enjoying the area with a trip out to the spectacular Moraine Lake!!
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