North America 2022

We appear to be getting over jet lag and we both had a good night’s sleep. We left the hotel and drove to Lake Louise and had a look round. We then headed off to Bow lake another beautiful stop where we witnessed a perfect rainbow arcing the water. We then moved onto Lake Peyto where again beautiful scenery comprising of water, mountains and glaciers. You might think seen one lake you’ve seen them all, I assure you that is not the case.    We then continued our journey through the mountains and stopped for lunch en route. We continued along Highway 93 known as the Icefields Parkway. We drove around the Big Bend where the road construction crews from Jasper linked up with the road construction crews from Banff and so completed the highway. We then stopped at another lookout known as Saskatchewan viewpoint. We carried onto the Columbian Ice field Centre. We left there and carried onto the Athabassa Falls that were fantastic. After this short stop we drove to Jasper for our overn...

After a fitful night’s sleep we assembled at 08:30 and boarded the coach. We drove to Sulphur Mountain stopping at some view points on the way. We arrived at the foot of the mountain and then    took the gondola, or cable car, depending what school you went too, to the summit. The views were spectacular and we were above the cloud which made them more so. We returned to Banff and wandered around the town and had lunch in the park. After we’d eaten just four of us went out on a helicopter trip through the Rockies. It was absolutely fantastic, Val and I had the helicopter to ourselves and I managed to get a number of spectacular photos. We returned to Banff and hit the shops again including Pandora. It’s a beautiful town, we wandered around then had dinner. Still a bit jet lagged and at 18:30 we were really tired but knew if we hit the sack too soon we’d be wide awake in the middle of the night. Tomorrow we move onto Jasper.

We knew it was going to be a long day. We climbed out of bed at 05:00 and did the final bits until the taxi arrived at 06:00. We were taken to Thorne Hill and within minutes of being dropped off our Heathrow coach arrived. Our journey was without incident and we were soon within the mighty world of Heathrow. We found the Air Canada desk and dropped off our luggage. We then went a found the assistance desk as we knew the distances would be too much for Val. We were taken through security and we found a place for breakfast. We then waited for our flight to be called which it eventually was. We were taken by buggy to our departure gate. We boarded the plane and at 12:15 BST we took off. It was a comfortable flight and we arrived 15:15 local time (22:15 BST) We soon cleared immigration and customs and met up with our tour manager. We boarded the bus for our transfer to Banff. On the way we drove past the ski jump where Eddie the Eagle made his name. There was an issue on the way which mad...

Today 13 June 2022the day we have to pay the balance for the trip to Canada and Alaska so it seemed an ideal time to create a blog.