From Aldergrove to Coaldale

On Wednesday evening we began our trip to Dirk and Amanda's. Our first night we stayed at Harrison's Hotsprings and had a wonderful time there, soaking in the hotsprings....

The next day we drove all the way to Kelowna. Along the way, we had to drive through the coastal mountains, following a very windy road, with lots of corners around the mountain edge...a little too close to the edge for me!! Once we were through the mountains, we headed to Osoyoos, a desert here in Canada!! The Okanagan Valley (runs from Osoyoos, through Kelowna and on to Vernon) is one of the warmest in the country and together with the sandy beaches, means great swimming. Well, that's what the tourist books say. We were rather disappointed with the "sandy" beaches; they were grey and stony! Maybe we really are spoiled with the white SANDY beaches in Australia!!+

We stopped off at this roadside place, because we saw a goat on the overhead bridge. It ended up being quite a neat little stop. There were wheels at the top of the bridge, with a little bucket of food for the goats on the bottom. When you put some corn in the bucket, the goats at the top would turn the wheel until they were rewarded with the corn!! One pushed the wheel with his nose and the other would use its paws. There were also some knickknacks and yummy sausages to look at and taste!! The rest of the drive through the Okanagan reminded us a little of home, with lots of wineries and more dry areas.
In Kelowna we stayed in a hotel that had a spa and a pool and a sauna. Well, I was introduced to the joys of saunas...why you want to sit in a stinking hot room until the sweat is dripping out of every pore of your body, is beyond me!! Although, I must admit that after the sauna, hottub and pool, we did feel very refreshed!!

Then it was more travelling. We stopped off at these falls and were rather impressed with their signs. They are even open on Sundays but do not charge admission because the Bible tells us to honour the Sabbath day...

We went for a fantastic walk following a path which had not quite cleared of snow! It was fun to walk on the snow and suddenly your foot would sink down and you'd get all snow in your shoe!!

The path followed an old railroad track!

In Revelstoke National Park we hiked up Nels Nelson's slope where some crazies made world records for ski jumping. I'm standing straight, the slope was that steep!! It was quite the hike up!

Then we were hoping to go up the Meadows in the Sky Parkway to the snow. (apparently only 12km of the 26km road were cleared of snow) but the gates were just closing. Instead, we parked the car and walked a km up the parkway to go for a lovely 2.5km walk. It was an awesome walk through the trees, and along the streams, although I was a little worried about bears in the neighbourhood as we'd been warned they were out and about. So I merrily talked and whistled along the way and thankfully we didn't meet any bears on our walks!!

We also went on 2 more short walks: the Skunk Cabbage Trail over a boardwalk through a swamp and the Giant Cedars Boardwalk through some magnificent giant cedars.

Thursday night we stayed at Canyon hotsprings in a little wooden cabin. Once again we enjoyed soaking in the hot pools!

Friday was a big day where we drove through Glacier National Park, Yoho National Park and Banff national park. We did more hikes, saw awesome mountains and waterfalls, went to Lake Louise and Moraine Lake which were still frozen over, walked the 2.4 km trail to Wapta falls and the beautiful walk along Johnston's Canyon. Wow, what an awe-inspiring part of God's earth!!

Wapta Falls

Emerald Lake

Lake Louise and Moraine Lake, still frozen.

Johnson's Canyon was a fantastic walk along the edge of the canyon. Some parts of the walk were even right above the fast flowing river!!

Here are some animals we saw along the way:

The stellar jay posed prettily for the cameras and these 4 elk we saw in Banff town!!

These 2 bears were on the side of the road. The bigger one was just on the other side of the road barrier!!