G'day All,
Today I picked up our hire car in preparation for tomorrow's wilderness adventures for 6 days with Samantha and Oliver to Banff, Lake Louise and Jasper.I had pre-booked a standard small Hyundai Sonata through Avis Calgary before we left Australia and everything was in order when we picked the car up at lunch time. The only surprise was that we had an upgrade to a full size car, a brand new (35km on the clock) Chevy Malibu. This is the US version of the Australian Holden Mailbu and I have to say this version looks and feels a hell of a lot more exciting than the Aussie version.
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| Our hire car for the next 6 days - Chevy Malibu |
Oddly enough driving on the opposite side of the car and road has been easy, perhaps it is my ambidextrous nature kicking in :-). I guess the big test will be the next 6 days but there is a lot of highway driving which is simple enough. The town streets might prove a bit more of a challenge.
Took the car home and then we all piled into Oliver's car along with the dogs for a run up to the Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary and Grassi Lakes for a hike. This was an introduction into the grandeur of the Canadian Rockies, from the highway on the floor below these mountains suddenly leap straight up in front of you. Initially it was looking like a cloudy and wet day but it cleared up quite nicely by the end of the day.
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| Road Trip |
At the Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary we did the guided tour which allowed us to enter the large pen with the high and mid content wolfdogs and sit and hand feed the mid content dogs, the high content wolfdogs while are very timid. The wolfdogs themselves are tame but not domesticated, which means they
will be curious and may approach guests who are relaxed and quiet. This was quite an experience and very informative. The higher the wolf content the less interactive the dogs are with humans. In the enclosure only one came over to be hand fed (Kuna), Nova only came within 1 meter and Zeus didn't come any closer than 10 meters. More info here:
http://www.yamnuskawolfdogsanctuary.com/
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| Zeus - The Alpha Male and highest wolf content |
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| Nova - Another male high content |
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| Alyx (one of the sanctuary staff) and Rue a female with mid content |
After the visit to the wolfdogs we headed toward Banff to do the Grassi Lakes walk. The Upper and Lower Grassi Lakes lie at an elevation of about
1,525m in the southern Canadian Rockies overlooking the town of Canmore.
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| On the way we passed a stereotypical hippie bus complete with dread-lock driver |
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| Grassi Lakes Waterfall |
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| View from near the top |
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| Even higher up |
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| Mountain Reflection in Grassi Lake |
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| More Reflections on the Grassi Lake |
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| Samantha and Arya with Oliver and Maverick |
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| View from the top |
A nice easy to medium 4-5 km walk although there were a couple of small steep sections which Penny managed to overcome her vertigo to get up, but the view and lakes were well worth it. The day was a bit rainy on and off and the forecast isn't looking too good for the next couple of days. We headed home to Calgary which was a bit damp and packed up ready to head to Banff proper in the morning. The next five days we will be seeing the sights of Banff, Lake Louise and Jasper.
Cheers
Gary and Penny
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