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Well after last nights beer intake neither of us were in a rush this morning so we did not hit the road until 10:00.

Heading off to Banff we did not really know what to expect from the journey due to the road not having been that long reopened following the flooding in the area but to put you out of your misery early on, the roads were great and virtually empty.

Now I know that we have talked about the Canadian Rocky scenery at great length in nearly every blog that we have written but we need to make sure that you have grasped just how beautiful this place is. Every single vista is the perfect photograph and you could take 1000's every day so you really have to tell yourself to hold back from the clicker

button as you would end up with so many pictures of snow capped mountains and flowing rivers and pine forests.

The drive from Jasper to Banff was no exception and in many ways actually gave us even more delights. We had more glaciers and more cobalt blue lakes and more thrashing rivers and glorious waterfalls. What was different with the drive was how the landscape changed as we drove ever closer to Banff.

We had beautiful pine forests that flowed into green flat marsh lands that proceeded to ice flats and glacier plains and then gravel meadows with shallow rivers throwing through the stone and shingle.

The road itself was very reminiscent of the Stuart Highway in Australia (one straight road that cuts across the length of Australia from Darwin to Adelaide) the difference here being that this highway twisted and turned, climbed and fell away. It snaked like a tarmac river with no boundaries on either side, floated over meadows, rose over granite mountains and cut trough forests.

Now one thing that we have not told you about is the wildlife. You can always tell when there is a wildlife spotting as you drive along the roads as the traffic comes to a complete standstill. So far we have seen a Marmot up on the tramway in Jasper and Elks and mountain sheep but the biggest and best wildlife spot has to go to be bear which so far had eluded us.

As we approached yet another gathering of buses and cars parked randomly and suddenly along the road we knew we were about to see something but guesses that it would be more of the mountain sheep as these seemed to be the most common. Well we could not have been more wrong as here it was finally, a bear!

Now what we did not expect was that said bear (it was obviously a young one but not what we would call a cub) had climbed up to the top of a tree and was hanging precariously at the top. He was eating branches from the tree, why the branches at the top of the tree were better than the ones at the bottom we dont understand but this bear might as well have been a rock star as he was really pulling in the crowds now. He has actually quite difficult to photograph as he kept snapping branches off and moving behind foliage. Still we got to see a wild bear just doing his own thing and that was great.

We made one stop along the journey at Lake Louise for lunch, to be honest there was nothing remarkable about this town that we could find or find out about so we moved on straight to Banff.

We arrived in Banff and made our way straight to the hotel to dump our stuff and park the car. Chores complete we headed out on foot to see what Banff was all about. Unfortunately by now it was raining but being troopers we carried on with our first port of call being the Bow River Falls.

We walked through Banff high street which is a purpose built resort so there is no redeeming architecture here although it does have real charm and had been developed in a modern canadian way with look a like log cabin details and painted wood cladding. The resort runs along the side of the Bow River which is one of the main rivers that has been overspilling and causing a lot of the floods here in Alberta. As we reached the park at the end of the town it was no surprise to find really sodden ground and tapped off areas and caution signs. As we followed the trail to the falls and the river our feet would stick in the mud and you got a real sense of how high the waters had been here. As we reached the side of the river we were shocked to see both how high the waters still were but also by how fast the waters were flowing. The noise of the river was tangible and the river itself was the colour of the mud that it had clearly picked up as it had burst its banks.

The parkland around the sides of the river itself were still sodden and park benches that would normally be sat at the side of the river were partly submerged, all this in an area that was not hit by the floods......

We left the mud and the river behind and headed for the town again and walked the streets sto get some bearings. Our hotel is right in the centre this time so we can literally fall out of the front door to a host of restaurants and bars.

Banff is the end of the line in terms of how far you can travel along the 1 highway at the moment. It usually flows all the way into Calgary but due to the floods and collapsed bridges the road for now stops here and the only other way into Calgary is going back on yourself and taking a six hour drive approaching Calgary from the north rather than form the east. The good news though is that the government here have been working very hard at getting the road link reopened as it is a widely used road and the main route out of the national parks. This means that as of today they are allowing emergency vehicles, delivery services and the airport transfer services to use the road and the various diversions meaning that you can now get into Calgary in about three hours if you go by these busses. We went to the Avis office to ask if it was an option to drop the car off here and then make our way into Calgary via the busses and they confirmed that this is possible. This is very good news for us, finally we have a decent option. Our hotel that we have booked in Calgary is only one block back from a still evacuated area so we don't know if we can even check in but we will make that call tomorrow....fingers crossed.

So back to Banff, we headed off to the supermarket to get breakfast in (fresh fruits and yogurt) and then back to the room for a little to sort ourselves out then it was out for a quick dinner. To be honest neither of us was feeling particularly hungry but you know we had to try something.

It does feel a lot more like civilisation here in Banff and you can tell that this is actually a very wealthy area with houses costing a lot of $$$. Thats what you get for having great skiing in winter and then the beauty of the national parks in the summer.

Tomorrow is our day of doing Banff and probably a little bit of organising. Fingers crossed for the hotel in Calgary!

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