Canada Not another moose head!!!!

Well, this is a first! Collected from our door. As the ford galaxy pulls away Meg notices that I have left a window open. This is not a first! As we drive away for the second time we introduce ourselves to Derek and Andrea who were picked up near Hull an hour ago. Our driver gets us to Heathrow dead on time in spite of making three stops to have a fag. Adrienne is our rather bossy tour guide but she gets us checked in in under a minute which is another first for us as is use of the hospitality suite where there is a free bar and nibbles. We meet some others on the tour and Derek and I debate which of us is going to be the individual that everyone dislikes. Air Canada provides comfortable seats and dreadful in-flight movies. The flight is long and tedious. Vancouver airport is bright and modern. We are to assemble by the baggage reclaim but not touch our luggage. Adrienne has staff to do that. A very cheerful announcer announces very cheerfully that they cannot get the cargo door open on our plane. The porters count 21 bags onto the trolley and Adrienne sets off. Meg points out that her case is not on the trolley. Adrienne rolls her eyes and mutters there is always one person who thinks their bag is missing. "We have 21 bags and 21 people" she states. Meg is not intimidated. "Mine is small and green and there is not a small green bag on the trolley"
"I have 21 bags and 21 people" affirms Adrienne. Meg is looking very determined. Adrienne has already had her schedule interfered with by a bolshie hold door. The porter finds Meg's small green suitcase on the carousel. Adrienne says nothing. We never find out where the 22nd suitcase came from.
We are introduced to Wyatt our driver who is very cheerful. Our route is along highway 1 Canada's transcontinental highway. The hotel is lavish, we have a suite. Two double beds, two sofas, two TVs, a kitchen a bathroom and a balcony. Neither TV is broadcasting anything worth watching so we set off for some exercise to keep awake as our bodies are telling us it is 02-am while the Vancouver clocks tell only 18-00 yesterday.
We stroll to English Bay then along the shore to Stanly Park where blue and grey herons display their fishing skills. Lean Canadian athletes' roller blade past, less athletic types do so in a shuffling jog. An Italian creates sculptures by balancing stones on top of each other. The ambience is very pleasant. In the bay are a couple of yachts, a couple of canoes and a tall ship. Adrienne has recommended a couple of restaurants but we are not hungry enough so share a salad and meat sandwich in Milestones which overlooks English Bay. The service is pleasant and the food good and quite cheap. We talk with other Thomas Cookers who are strolling past then buy bits and pieces for breakfast in a local supermarket. Meg heads for bed and I for the gym. The contrast between Mexico earlier this year and Canada is stark. In Mexico there were four broken bikes and a couple of other contraptions. In Canada there are 10 treadmills15 bikes, 10 steppers, a circuit and innumerable weights all in top class order. We are sliding off into the longed for sleep when an odd bell sounds, more tolling than alarming. Is it a fire alarm? Meg thinks yes I think no. Meg starts to dress. The gong stops, I turn over. The gong starts again. I don the complimentary dressing gown and peer into the corridor full of similarly gowned peering guests. A Tannoy announces that there has been a fire alarm, please wait for further instructions. Meg spots a fire engine outside. This time we are in complete agreement, if it is a genuine fire alarm we do not need further instructions on the 15th floor. A bizarrely dressed group, shuffle down the stairs to the bowels of the hotel a narrow corridor twists and turns before we are ejected onto a back street. The wait for further instruction notice is repeated several times. It quite a walk to the front door where the concierge is ushering guests back inside. Thomas Cookers and good humouredly outraged about the loss of their precious sleep except for Keith and Yvonne who slept right through the whole episode. I rise early and buy croissant and blueberry muffins but spurn the recommended confection smothered in maple syrup, from the Bread Garden. These combine with orange juice and tea to make an excellent breakfast. . We are collected by Wyatt and Adrienne for our tour of Vancouver starting with the Totem poles. These are not religious artifacts but more coats of arms of the First Nations. They feature grizzly bears, ravens, and snakes, often with two heads, whales, frogs and thunder birds. One includes a reference to a tribe whose men committed mass suicide to save their women and children who had been captured by an enemy tribe. Wyatt provides a continuous stream of information and humour. Stanly park is 15 Km in circumference. It is a rain forest of greater density than the Amazon. Canada produces 60% of the atmosphere's oxygen and has a huge % of the world's fresh water. In the bay are two floating petrol stations to refuel the boats and sea planes. There used to be three but there is a canon that is used to signal the turning of the tide and some students filled the barrel with garbage. It must have been heavy garbage because at the turn of the tide the cannon sank the shell filling station. Canada is the second biggest country in the world but has only 30 million residents. The UK would fit into British Columbia 4 times. On the opposite side of the park is the highest point overlooking the entrance to the harbour, an excellent spot for more canons. Two were placed here in an era when it was feared the Spaniards, Japanese or Americans would invade. Nobody did but the canons remained manned until one day when a fishing boat was a little dilatory in identifying itself. Keen for a break in the years of inactivity the gun crew decided to fire a warning shot across its bows but in the process sank a tanker moored nearby. Kings Bridge is a piece of economic genius. The Guinness family bought up all the land north of the water which surrounds Vancouver then got the guy who built the Golden Gate to build a replica for $6millon. The land suddenly had development potential and the family were very choosy about who they sold it to si it became very exclusive. They made $20 million in bridge tolls then sold the bridge to the city. The land which they still own on the North Side has a current market value of $75 million We visit Granville Island market where Jenny used to work and look up her colleagues. She is remembered with affection and they pose for a picture with an ornament that they could not sell when she was there and still cant. It's a cross between a penguin and a mole. The tour takes us round China Town, Gas Town and some more modern developments. The base ball stadium has an inflatable roof. The last vestiges of expo 99 are still visible but they are already preparing for the winter Olympics for 2010. We have the afternoon free but Wyatt has offered to drop us off in town. Most want to visit a famous shopping mall but Meg and I are off to Gas Town. The city is very congested; it would have been quicker to walk. Wyatt checks to see if we remember how long Highway 1 is? I venture over 4,000 miles, Derek reckons it is just under 5,000. It is 4,876 not counting the bits on Vancouver Island and Newfoundland. He sets us some more homework;
We have to find the name of Captain Vancouver's ship.
When we eventually persuade Wyatt to let us off we first visit a tower for a splendid panoramic view of the city. Gas Town is a cobbled area named after gassy Jack. A founding character who realised that what the emerging Vancouver needed was alcohol. So he started several breweries and opened a saloon. The city never looked back and Jack's statue stands atop a brandy barrel at the site of his original saloon. This area of the town is still heated by steam and the system has interesting safety valves. The one in Water Street is in the form of a clock which vents steam on the quarter hour through whistles which are tuned to produce the Westminster Chimes. We eat at the Old Spaghetti House where for a couple of extra dollars you get to keep the pint mug in which they serve locally brewed beer. Meg shakes her head in despair at the transportation problem this presents. After deciding we do not have time to visit the Storyum we head for Canada Place which is Vancouver's answer to the Sydney Opera house. Being built like a tall ship under full sail. It houses a collection of shops, galleries and a theatre. In tourist information we suss out the best way to visit Grouse Mountain under our own steam. She tells us we can but day tickets for the entire transport system in advance but she has run out so directs us to a newsagent who has run out but directs us to a vending machine. After parting with $16 we find the vending machine vends only tickets for the current day. We shout at the tourist information staff for a minute or two. Then walk in the park to Beaver Lake which should really be called Water Lily Lake. Getting lost on the maze of paths helps to generate an appetite for another meal at the Milestone. We are really enjoying the grilled wild salmon and will probably never be satisfied with the farmed variety again. Before retiring we book a place on the hotels complimentary shuttle into town for tomorrow morning. Captain Vancouver was racing the Spaniards to claim the pacific coast. His ships were the Discovery and the much smaller Valiant? But even that was too big for some of the narrow passages so they landed in longboats. Both Vancouver and Diego were in need of instructions from home and when they failed to arrive decided to call a truce and name the Island Vancouver and Diego's island. However that proved too much of a mouthful for history, so no one remembers Diego.
After an even better breakfast we are informed that the hotel needs their shuttle vehicle but will pay our taxi fare. We buy valid day tickets and head for the Water bus and North shore. They leave every 15 minutes and count down the last minute electronically. We have several seconds to spare.
A 236 takes us to the foot of the Grouse Mountain teleferique which lifts us to 4,000'. We expected a view but there is a bonus, a veritable plethora of diversions. Another ski lift ride, a ranger talking about grizzly's with two prime specimens' right behind him. I did not realise that bears are largely vegetarian and are less dangerous than dogs, they will only attack to protect their cubs or if suddenly taken by surprise. Some hikers wear morris bells to eliminate the chance of surprising a bear. There is an enclosure containing four dozy wolves, film shows, hawking displays, lumberjack demos and guided walks. We only have time for a couple of items and it is surprisingly cold. Later we learn that when the TC trip visited later in the afternoon the cloud was down and not only the view but the grizzly's were absent. The bus drops us at Capilano Park on the way back. We had been warned more than once that this Indiana Jones type suspension bridge was a rip off but we decide we are prepared to be ripped. Well yes it is, but the woods have pleasant trails and they have added more Indiana Jones bridges between six Douglas Firs. A notice assures us that the river is full of three types of salmon but I cannot see any. First Nation people are making drums that look mighty like borhans. Their symbol is the raven and they have a superb mask which is not for sale so Meg buys Moose heads for her grandchildren. We bus and boat back to Gas Town for another excellent meal then spend 15 minutes failing to discover the attraction of the super mall. We have eventually developed sufficient appetite to eat at the recommended Boat House. The food was indeed superb and the organization very efficient. We arrived at 8-00 at the same time as about 1000 other people most of who had booked. It took only 10 minutes to get us seated.

We rise early to catch the ferry to Vancouver Island. Wyatt entertains us with stories of the economic disaster and technical chaos that ensued when the government tried to run the ferry system. The original super-cats were too noisy and caused too much wake for the environment but overheated if you ran them at half speed. Once on the island we made a stop at Chemainus, a logging town that was deserted by the logging company. In an attempt to generate income from tourism they invited artists to paint murals depicting all aspects of Canadian history on every flat surface in the town.

The artists did a very good job and liked the town so much they formed a colony. The tourists flocked in and after a while the logging company came back. Meg and I take pictures of each other "in" the murals. The next stop is another economical success story.
Butchart Gardens were created by the wife of a local businessman. Originally she wanted to do something about the disused quarry on her doorstep which was an eyesore. She created a sunken garden. Friends and neighbours came to visit, she made them tea. Friends and neighbours brought their friends and neighbours and Mrs. Butchart found she was making 1000 cups of tea a week so she started to charge for entry. She added a Japanese garden and while her husband was away on a trip planted the tennis courts with roses. Every where in the rose growing world supplied her with specimens. We even found Chicago Peace which we planted in Belfit Drive in 1966. Mrs. Butchart had it in 1962. We had to pay for our tea and scones in a delightful tea room. There are now over 1 million visitors per year, and most of them seemed to be there on the day of our visit, but in spite of that the two hours flew by. Outside there was a performance of the Wizard of Oz for the kids who did not appreciate flowers. Wyatt took us round the posh end of Vancouver before setting our next piece of homework.

What do the locals call the Parliament Building?

0ur new hotel room overlooked the harbour which doubled as an airport for sea planes. Harbour taxis which look more suitable for Silverdale boating lake than the Pacific Ocean bustle about in between landings and takeoffs. We stroll along the harbourside broad walk to Milestones for yet more wild salmon. Like Vancouver, Victoria has Street Orca. Models of whales decorated by artists and auctioned off at the end of each summer. If you want to see them visit www.orcasinthecity.com . From Miestones we can see the parliament building which is decorated with fairy lights. We speculate that it might be called Disney land or Vegas. Our waitress has no Idea but thinks she might know someone who will. During the meal we get "The Ledge." "The Queen's House" "Purple City" suggested. The waitress is now so interested that she gives us her address so we can email her the answer which turns out to be "The Birdcages".
Our whale watching trip is slightly delayed by an oil leak which the skipper is not prepared to take to sea being ecologically conscientious. We soon pick up J and K pods. The guides know each whale by the markings on its dorsal fin and the one Meg gets the best picture of on her digital camera is identified as Flash, a young male from L pod. I foolishly listen to one of the guides telling a young woman not to use her video camera's viewfinder but to watch the whales with her naked eye and aim the camera along its top surface. We see lots of whales and I have lots of jerky pictures of the sky. We see several new birds on the trip including a spectacular Bald Eagle sitting on top of a navigation light. Canada has many more Bald Eagles than the U.S.A. Meg is impressed by tube fish and moon jellies which Toby identifies in the harbour. We set off on Walk No. 2 in our guide book. The flag shop has moved since the guide was printed but the new owner redirects me and I acquire a pre 1991 USSR hammer and sickle. Meg buys some more moose; I think we have 6 now, one for each of our grandchildren and one spare. The walk takes in a China Town a very narrow street and an interesting market. Victoria is bright and fresh and clean.

On the long drive to Kelowna we are put on "Bear Watch alert" but see neither bear nor many signs of life at all. Adrienne is "knocking Kelowna as a place to visit because only 4 have signed up for her optional tour of the surrounding area and visit to a winery. The lake front looks quite attractive to us and Knox Mountain looks climbable. We drink a local chardonnay in our room before enjoying a salad in the hotel with Gina and Brian. Wyatt's homework is to find out what the initials VQA stand for but in a wine growing region the answer is obvious and we complain that we are not being seriously challenged. In the morning we visit the gym. Adrienne now has 8 on her trip so is looking more cheerful. The local supermarket sells high tensile croissant. We take the hotel courtesy car to the lake side and as we arrive an osprey dives for fish. We learn later that there is only one pair on the lake. The shore line is as pretty as it seemed and there is a model of Odogoga who is the local equivalent of Nessie. The local park is closed for a Wakefest which we learn is like skate boarding on water. The closure means we have to detour to get to the mountain. We cut through a car park and finish up in a sawmill. The start of the climb is disappointingly unattractive but we persevere and soon reach a good viewpoint. As the route to the top looks like more of the same we opt instead for a 2km. path that contours on a pretty flower lined path above the lake to Paul's tomb.
Paul came to Kelowna when he was 74, built a mausoleum and died.
After lunch in a bistro I read the ads round our map and discover that a short detour will take us to a Winery. There is over an hour to wait for the next tour but we can taste 3 wines for $2 British Columbian wines are really classy and with luck or good judgment we find a couple we like enough to buy. The tasting become free and more numerous. We meet Dave and Shirley and Danny and Louise who tell us the trip was a success. The "25" minute walk back to the hotel takes us 19. Meg goes for a swim and signals with a wave of her hand that the water temperature is iffy. Iffy for Meg is perishing cold for me so I content myself with watching a repeat of the British grand prix in French. We have booked a table in the really posh hotel restaurant which turns out to be more pretentious than delicious. Breakfast by contrast costs $2.99 at grandmas and includes rubbery scrambled eggs that remind me of Elsie's on the Coast-to-Coast. The bread is delicious. We are in for a long drive today so it is a surprise when we make an early stop at a garden centre that sells fruit. Keith and I spend the stop bird watching. We stop for lunch at Dutch Lake which is an idyllic spot. Apparently they were shoveling fresh snow here last week. We dine on thick broccoli soup on the veranda watching a Great Northern Diver or Loon to give it its Canadian name. Serious game watching resumes and Adrienne is appalled when Derek spots a dead bear. If it were anyone other than Derek I would have no doubt as to their veracity but he may just be winding her up. Wyatt has gone back into his informative mode mainly about railways and rivers which are the economic routes for the fur trade. Suddenly our wild life watch has its first success. A moose with a baby appears on the road ahead it is being spooked by rather inconsiderate drivers but we get a good clear view. Soon after we are seeing bears thick and fast. At least 5 and maybe 6, they are an amazing sight. Wyatt informs us that the increasing temperature will send the bears to the higher slopes and a week later we may not see any. Our final stop is below Mount Robson the highest peak in the Rockies. The top is appropriately cloud covered. Migrating humming birds feed on sugar water provided by the café. Jasper in named after yet another railway pioneer, our homework is to discover what a Lobstick is?
We fancy a pizza but the topping combinations are a bit strange so settle for Caesar Salad and juicy steak. The house wine is French? VIN du pays d'Orange. I window shop the gift sellers while Meg use the 'Loo and I buy an Alberta Flag, adding a new dimension to flag collecting. Meg counters by buying the biggest moose head yet on the pretext that the tone of our entrance hall needs lowering.
On the way to Malign Canyon next morning, Wyatt checks to see if we still know the length of highway 1. Derek complains that 4867miles in now occupying the area of his brain he was reserving to use learning how to iron. At the canyon Adrienne instructs us to turn left at the junction in the paths. We shuffle behind a crowd to the bridge. They have given us an hour which allows plenty of time for eating and shopping. As neither interest us Meg and I make a rebellious right turn. The canyon is spectacular, 6'wide and 100' deep. After 20 minutes we retrace our steps to the now empty bridge and enjoy the official 10 minute walk in solitude. Meg still has time to buy another moose for our Christmas tree.
A Lobstick is a trail marker made by cutting all the lower branches off a pine tree. The top branches are then cut to leave the appropriate message, "Safe river crossing" "dangerous natives" etc.
We are not doing anything as like as well on wild animals. One mule eared deer, but the scenery is stunning. Medicine Lake is turquoise. It fills with snow melt once the subterranean channels are full. We see dicos accurately described as tennis balls with ears. Malign lake is as beautiful as Medicine Lake was. We all shun the lake cruise, most shop and eat and shop while Meg and I use the hour to walk the lake shore and watch yellow fronted finches. We meet a couple of Italians and a lot of mosquitos.We purchase neither flags nor moose.
The white water raft ride is quite different from our Truckee river ride at Lake Tahoe. Here there is much more and faster flowing water but far fewer obstacles. There we were on our own; here we have a professional oarsman who does his best to get us wet. It is a very pleasant to see the mountains from a different viewpoint and we get to see osprey and mergansers. We all fall for the expensive group rafting photo, sixteen of us went altogether. We return to the hotel for a swim then swig the gammay-noir before walking into Jasper for the evening. After a meal in the Jasper Inn we join some of the group for drinks. The drive to Banff is shorter in distance but longer in time because of the number of stops planned. Derek spots a dead beaver. We call at more lakes each breathtakingly beautiful in its own right. Wyatt tells us that when tourists first started visiting the area in numbers, Kodak sent a team to see if the lakes really were turquoise. All the lakes seem to have been discovered by employees of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The rivers are wide and fast flowing. We follow the lower Thompson, the Upper Thompson and the Athabasca. The Athabasca falls have a natural bridge. Wyatt warns us to stay on the walkway, a bus load of school children have obviously not had the same warning and they leap over the torrent from wet rock to wet rock in gay abandon. The spray exhibits the customary continuous rainbow. At a stop to look over the Saskatchewan river Derek spots two mountain goats and they were still alive when we left.The next lake is near the hut of a trapper called Peyto. The hut is red and the authorities told him to repaint it green but before he could they discovered that in winter the red hut made a good landmark so red it stayed. They did not trust Peyto and suspected him of trapping out of season. A squad of Mounties was assigned to keeping an eye on him. Shortly after returning from one of his trips the RCMP had to ask him to go and find their Mounties for them. They got him in the end though; they made him the chief warden for the park. Lake Peyto is the highest point on our trip at just 13' under 7,000'. If I had known that at the time I would have climbed a tree.
Lake Louise is the most commercial, named after the wife of one of the railway bosses. It has a massive hotel which all sorts of celebrities whose names I forget visit. There are Blackpool sized crowds but a walk along the lakeside loses them in 10 minutes and we are free to share the peace with the occasional canoeist and more intrepid walker. Still on wildlife watch we see only the odd mule eared dear and dicos.
We stop at the Athabasco glacier for an ice walk. Once again if we had not done the 5 hour walk in Norway this would have been more dramatic. We go by bus to the foot of the glacier then transfer to 6 wheel drive ice vehicles. Wyatt's homework is to find out what a Tri-hydra point is and where the only other one in the world is?
The information is supposed to be part of the spiel of our guide but she is stunned to silence by Derek who in response to her jibe about us not having any questions asks "Is the decay of the glaciers linear or exponential?"
I interrogate another guide and discover that a tri-hydra point is one from which the water drains into three different oceans. From this ice dome water flows to the Atlantic; Pacific and Arctic. The other place where this happens is Siberia.
Banff is spectacular; mountains soar up almost from the town centre. The hotel is well placed and eating places abound. We have excellent steak at Kegs. The next day is one of the days off that add considerably to our enjoyment. We have a number of alternative walks to consider. I discuss the Amphitheatre with tourist information. Who tell me there are two grizzlies in the area with cubs. I tell Meg about the grizzlies but not about the cubs. She has already decided that the less strenuous Tunnel Mountain sounds more attractive. I waste a lot of time trying to find out how to get to Sunshine Meadows with the help of tourist information, the hotel staff and the internet. We can find leaflets and web pages but none tell us where it is and where the courtesy bus stops. Well this is the Useless travel Guide after all.
Tunnel Mountain is delightful. The path in dappled shade climbs though a pine forest and gives us lovely views on three sides.
"Did you see the 2 year old elk at the foot of the path?" enquires a fellow climber. "No we missed that one but there are plenty of birds and squirrels. It was just the exercise we were looking for. In the afternoon we set off for the Marsh Loop but abort when the mossies turn up in force. Pity because this is supposed to be particularly good for exotic birds and the marsh contains tropical fish that survived after someone ditched their collection because of the warm sulphur springs.
Wyatt's question is "What is the significance of the train whistles?"
We catch the bus to the Banff Springs hotel which like Lake Louise has had loads of forgettable celebrities. We then cut through mosquito infested woods to a teleferique. We are wearing jungle strength repellant and it works because we are not bitten but the presence of them in their thousands is intimidating. Don't be put off by the price of the ride, the top is terrific. We rode up with a man and his daughter who had been named after the West Yorkshire town of Keighly. She had not met many people who had been there. There is a board walk to a weather station with splendid views and a ridge walk which we did not discover until too late. There is also a long descent which must be a great walk for which we did not have time. The queue for the lift was long and we were getting weary so it was a godsend when the couple with whom we descended offered us a lift back to Banff. We set off to dine at Melissa's Missteaks which is supposed to be on the corner of Lynx and Wolf. It appears to have changed into a petrol station. However having given up searching we trip over it. During the search we listen to train whistles. LONG LONG SHORT LONG. Sounds like Morse and it must be a little used letter, but which one and why?
The locals cannot tell us. Buying breakfasts is getting less and less successful. The supermarkets opening times are later, they do not open on time and they do not restock their shelves overnight. The after dinner drinking session is becoming more sociable and even grumpy man is joining in. We divi up $105 for the full day trip as do all the rest of the group. First stop are the spiral tunnels. The Canadian Pacific's surveyors recommended Yellow Head pass but the administrators chose Kicking Horse. There was a good case for building the railway as near the USA as possible to eliminate border disputes. Unfortunately Kicking Horse was too steep and derailments outnumbered successful journeys. The solution to the steep gradient was to dig two spiral tunnels in the mountain. They did this with precision the tunnels being only 2 cm out when they met. It is possible with their long trains to see a west bound train entering a tunnel going west, coming out going east entering the second tunnel and exiting heading west all at the same time. While we were watching the only thing that came along that track was a one person transporter. The modern equivalent of that device with two pump handles you see in westerns.
Kicking Horse pass is not a First Nation name. The doctor of one of the railway expeditions fancied himself as an explorer and set off on his own one day. His horse fell through the ice and after a heroic and successful attempt to save it the ungrateful beast kicked him and trotted back to camp. His comrades found him dead and lit a fire to warm the ground so that they could bury him. As they were sprinkling the first soil on him he came round. He was the only member of the party technically qualified to pronounce someone dead.
The otherwise decent buffet lunch at the Lake Louise ski lift included Naiomin bars accurately described by Wyatt as a local delicacy with absolutely no nutritional value. The lift passes over an area known to contain grizzlies but our barren stretch of wild life spotting continues unabated. Once again the views are terrific.
Lake Moraine is not formed by terminal moraine. The First Nations called it the Lake of 10 mountains and it has the best backdrop of mountains of all the lakes we have seen. It was used to decorate the Canadian $20 bill until recently. Meg is asked by a family to take their photo but is dissatisfied with their disposable camera so takes one with her SLR and promises to email it to them. Last stop of the day is Johnson Canyon. As usual most head for the gift shop while 6 of us head for the waterfall. It is another lovely walk. The river is very Derbyshire like and sure enough there are dippers. I was surprised to learn that Keith considered them a rarity. Many of the places we have walked have other and longer alternatives and another holiday here will allow us to explore them. On the drive back we at last spot some magnificent Wapiti but still have not seen big horn sheep.
The answer to Wyatt's Banff question is the drivers sound Q as a tribute to Queen Victoria, they only do it in Banff.
The roadside flowers are a revelation. They grow in swathes, one moment the verges are white with daises the next oranges with balsam rooted something's. Red with Indian paint brush, blue with a sort of corn flower, pink with rosebay willow herb. We have arranged to meet up with everybody for a farewell drink in the hotel bar at 9-30, but no one is there, Gina and Brian arrive at 9-45 and at 10-00 Derek and Steve come to tell us they are all in the Irish Pub where there had been a long delay in getting served
Our final day starts with a trip to the gym. Bit of a wrench for me as today is the third round of The Open and both Montgomerie and Lane are doing well. Another channel is showing Le Tour live and Lance Armstrong is strengthening his grip over Jan Ulrich, but I do need the exercise. We chew through our last tasteless croissant then walk to Bow Falls. The Bow River would be famous anywhere else in the world being more dramatic than many of its more famous sisters. I am astonished when in reply to my asking Wyatt which ocean it enters to learn that it is a melt water river and dries up just after Calgary. Meg switches to buying bears for Lucy. I change my mind about changing into long trousers for the journey home, its too hot. As we leave the room for the last time Monty drops out of contention and most of the others are having difficulty with the breeze leaving Els and Michelson clear. We have a final Caesar salad at the Old Spaghetti House. Our only stop on the way to the airport is at the site of the 1996 winter Olympics where Wyatt asks who won the ski Jump and the 4 man bob? The point of the question is that no one knows, but everyone remembers Eddy the Eagle and the Jamaican Bobsleigh team. The museum has h hall of honour where I ascertain the correct answer. Meg says she is starting to feel like Hermione from Hogwarts. Young Canadians are using the ski lifts to get their mountain bikes to the top of the slopes then whizzing down, it looks great fun. We say goodbye to Wyatt who has significantly exceeded his duties as driver and greatly added to our enjoyment. I will always remember that highway 1 is 4976 miles long, 5100 if you count the bits on the islands. At the airport we sample fast food for the first time Minestrone soup with custard filled doughnuts are fine. Mind you the outside of the doughnut was a surprise as well as I ordered maple syrup and got chocolate. Meg haggles for a window seat and delays check in by less than 15 minutes. The in-flight films are designed to bore us to sleep. We use all but our last 10 cents on a bottle of whisky we may not like but we were $2 short for Jameson's.
The view on take off from Meg's hard won window is amazing. Flat fields as far as the eye can see. Where are all the mountains that filled the past 10 days with magic? The weather has been wonderful, and we are led to believe extremely kind to us. At several places the local inhabitants talked of shoveling fresh snow or torrential rain a few days before we arrived.
The holiday has held a lot of surprises; I am surprised that I am still surprised after so much traveling.
The quality of British Columbian Wine.
The quality of the food.

The relative lack of music.
The courtesy of Canadians, especially the drivers. The seem to anticipate when you may be considering crossing the road.
The Banff pedestrian crossings count down the seconds you have left. Canadians who attempt to be pedestrians in Europe must finish up in hospital if not the morgue.
The number of mountains that make up the Rockies, and their rockiness.
As the James Bond finishes I look out to see the Outer Hebrides, at 10-24 we actually fly over the clearly visible tented village of The Open at Troon.
Looks like they are having a nice day

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