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So we woke up to some bad news today. Unbeknown to us the area area Banff and Calgary has seen terrible flooding with roads collapsed and communities destroyed by bursting riverbanks. The news reported that much of downtown Calgary was being evacuated so we are not sure how this will effect our plans and movements. We are due to be in Banff in three days and at the moment we have no idea what we will do if we have to change our plans but I am sure as the days go on we will let you all know.

Anyway outside of all that doom and gloom today was another moving day with a three and a half hour drive up highways one, then five to Kamloops.

We walked downtown to pick up our hire care from Avis

hoping that they were going to honour our booking for the car we had asked for. As we were going to have this car for the next six days we had paid for a four by four. With us heading off into the rocky mountain national parks we wanted to be up high to get the maximum of the views that would be on offer and also able to drive up pretty much every road. Luckily for Avis it was a shiny pretty much brand new 4x4, a hyundai Santa Fe with all the extras, not a bad car actually.

Now where in the world would we be without sat nav?? LOST !!

Luckily Trevor had downloaded all the Canada maps onto his iphone (technology can be so wonderfully useful some times) and it has come into its own when we are getting in and out of cities, especially one the size of Vancouver.

As we headed out into the cities suburbs the glass floor to ceiling towers changed to wooden houses and then to out of town malls and garages until suddenly we were out on the open roads of highway 1.

At first we were driving right adjacent to the US border as all the road signs were highlighting the motorway exits that would take you into the U.S. They also told you the wait time for boarder control, with some queues over forty minutes long.

What really struck us as we drove was how different the landscape was from the journey back from Whistler. Gone were the snow capped mountains and rugged granite terrain, here we had flat green lush farming land. Yes you could see the odd pine forest but nothing like we had seen over on Vancouver Island and around Whistler. These flat farming fields were cut by twisting shallow white water rivers, flowing over visible rocks and fallen timber.

We soon began to climb and climb and climb. Nearly every vehicle on the road seemed to be one of those huge american style trucks complete with all the chrome and massive shiny bumpers or those double cab pick up trucks with huge rear wheel mud flaps. This was mans country and with all the barns on either side of the road you could tell that they here all going off somewhere to drive some even bigger piece of farming machinery in those checked twill shirts.

The scenery along the drive stayed pretty much the same for the journey into Kamloops. Occasionally you would get a tree covered mountain as some deep ravines or valleys but on the whole this was farming land with the majority being crop and berry growing land splattered with the odd cattle farm here and there.

As we approached the outskirts of Kamloops we were actually surprised by its size. The outskirts of town were full of all the usual out of town malls and stores selling their wares, it was not what we had expected. The guidebooks had all been relatively slating of Kamloops and there did not seem to be anything of remarkable interest to do here. It is what it is, a stop over town full of hotels and a gateway to the national parks of the rocky mountains.

We checked into our room at the Ramada and took a stroll down into the downtown area. Before we get into that heres a little history on Kamloops.

The town originally grew from the sides of the River Thompson and the River Thompson West as both branches merge here. It was a native settlement ground and it sits in a flat valley surrounded by mountains on all sides. The natives were attracted to it as the valley could provide them with all the natural resources that they needed with the rivers being the main providers of fish. As time passed Kamloops became an important trading post as a large settlement for those travelling in and out of the rockies and it soon became renowned for its trading in furs and skins.

This all changed with the discovery of gold and all the prospectors arriving and filling up the rivers with their panning and the mountains for their mining. The riches bought the railway into town and Kamloops still remains an important town as a trading centre today.

History lesson over, the other thing that's apparent about Kamloops is that it is Hilly, and we mean San Francisco type hills. The walk down into the downtown area from our hotel was like walking down a ski slope and what made it worse was that we knew we had to walk back up!

The town itself (like many of the hotels we passed) all seems like it was developed into its current guise in the 1970's so not the best period for architecture or town planning. It would also seem that much of local life takes place up in the out of town malls and not downtown with one in four shops now being closed down. There was not that much going on at all (looks like the guide book was right).

We did walk a beautiful municipal park on the river edge with great facilities. I should mention here that he weather has taken a real turn for the better here and we were now walking around in t-shirts in 23 degrees.

We exhausted all that the town had to offer in an hour (and that includes stopping for a drink) and it was now time to face the mighty hills back to the hotel in the heat!

Now that was hard work!!

Back at the hotel we looked at road options to see if there was any way around some of the reported road closures for our on going trip to Banff and Calgary. In the end it seemed like the best thing to do was to get to Jasper tomorrow and then find out information there.

With time to kill we headed off out in the car to the our of town malls and bought a few essentials that needed topping up and ended up being seduced by the thought of KFC (sometimes you just got to have it) although this one did come with the weirdest green coleslaw we had ever seen.

So its eight o'clock and we are back in the hotel. Tomorrow is six hours without stops in the car so along way and with all the potential road problems we are planning an early night.

Now to go to the gym to burn off some of that naughty chicken skin!!

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