This was probably one of our earliest starts of the trip so far. Our alarms were set for quarter to 4, which wasn't a pleasant experience. It didn't help that the 2 other people in our room were chronic fidget era and the beds were incredibly creepy. We were up so early off so little sleep, it made me feel sick. It was necessary though, due to the early hour, there was no direct bus to the train station, so we would just have to walk. We retrieved our food from the kitchen fridge, checked out and hit the cool, early morning streets of Vancouver. It was a pleasant walk in the end, albeit with a couple of interesting characters and numerous people still making their way home after a night of far too much alcohol. We arrived at the bus station with plenty of time to spare, so once we'd got our luggage tags, Charlotte nipped across the road to Tim Horton’s and picked us up a coffee each. Due to the long travel time of our next bus, we were desperate to get a seat together. As ever, we needn't have worried, as we were near the front of the line and when we departed Vancouver, the bus was in,y half full. Although, every other couple on the bus had seated themselves in separate rows or seats. We filtered out of the Vancouver suburbs, picking up a few people along the way, which quickly made the smartalec's move back to their seats. After a couple of hours, the scenery started to get pretty spectacular. Steep mountains rose all around us and the towns of Chilliwack and Hope looked like pretty nice places to live. At the town of Merritt, a man who had been warned about getting off the bus, never made it back from getting his coffee but the driver didn't seem to care and drove off anyway. Our first long stop was in the town of Kamloops, which didn't have the same allure of the earlier towns. The greyhound station was a bit of a dump, the café was closed down and it seemed like the kind of place that anyone would want to get out of as soon as possible. It was non stop mountains from then on in, with thick forest covering their slopes and the occasional alpine lake sliding past the window. One town clearly though well of itself and had taken the name Sorrento, from the town on the Amalfi coast in Italy. Revelstoke and Golden were the final stops before the last stretch to Banff and were as scenic as any other. From Golden, it's safe to say it got interesting and probably became one of the tippy top of the top highlights on the whole trip. I'd been keeping an eye out for bears the whole way, just incase there happened to be one hitching a ride at the side of the road. The guy behind us on the bus had been talking to us on and off and told us that we were passing through an area that is very common for avalanches, which was interesting but obvious due to the presence of Avalanche sheds, which shield the road from the avalanches. Not long after the sheds, the man piped up again, “you regularly see bears through this stretch”. He was a little bit annoying but he knew the road very well, seeing as he worked for a hire car company; he'd driven it hundreds of times. I kept my eyes peeled, while a few people spoke around me. After a short while, I heard a yell from the driver, which sounded like "bear!”. Low and behold, just next to the fence at the side of the road, was a huge Grizzly Bear. Charlotte just managed to catch a glimpse as it disappeared into the distance. We had big smiles on our faces all the way to the next stop at Lake Louise. We'd barely been on the road 5 minutes after the stop and there was another yell “BEAR!”, followed by a honk of the horn. A black bear, was just taking a leisurely stroll down the westbound lane of the highway. It had all been a really thrilling experience, something we'd both really wanted to see. Not only had we seen one, but 2 and different species. It couldn't have panned out better and would never have happened if the drive had gone slightly different in any way. Had the driver waited for the chap at Merritt, we probably wouldn't have seen any. We were still buzzing when we arrived in Banff. I'd gone 7 days during my last stay in Banff and hadn't seen a bear, so we'd been incredibly lucky. Now though, we were paranoid of running in to a bear at every turn. Fortunately, we weren't too far away from the Main Street, so it was only a 5 minute walk to the local bus stop and the safety of crowds of people. We had a short wait for our bus, which cost $2 and dropped us off just at the end of the road our hostel was on. We checked in to a 4 bed dorm that, inevitably at half 9 at night, only had the 2 top bunks remaining. We just dumped our things in the room and headed down to the kitchen to hastily prepare a meal before the kitchen closed at 11. All we had was a tin of tuna and some leftover pasta and we hadn't had a chance to get to the supermarket when we arrived in Banff. The dinner was simple and quite bland but it filled a gap, which is all we really needed it to do. Once we were done, we crept back in to the room and settled in for the night.
Monday 29th May
It had been our intention to get up bright and early in order to see if you could catch a glimpse of any wildlife from the rear decking of the hostel. That quickly went by the wayside though, as the bus ride had proved really draining. By the time we were up and ready, it was nearly 10, so we decided to head straight to town. We'd picked up a free bus pass when we checked in the previous night but as we were walking down to the bus stop, the bus was just pulling away. It wasn't a long walk to the town, so we decided to take the scenic option rather than wait 40 minutes for the next bus. We were slightly worried about the potential of running in to a bear and cruder ourselves for not picking up some bear spray from reception. We figured the locals wouldn't have a problem if we ran in to their house or jumped in their unlocked car if we did end up running in to a hungry Grizzly. In the end, we didn't end up meeting a bear but we did cross paths with a pretty bold white tailed deer, who was eating his breakfast from a tree. We cut from the road we were walking on, down some steps and emerged out on to the Main Street, which is handily names Banff Avenue. We were about 5 minutes from the town centre, so continued on our way. Our first stop was brekkie at Tim Horton’s, which was off the main road, near the train station. We enjoyed a wrap and a coffee before heading out to have a look around Banff. All we ended up doing for the day was checking out the shops along Banff avenue. We picked up a few souvenirs for various people, before heading across the bridge over the Bow River and walking down to have a look at the Bow Falls. Charlotte was worried about the presence of bears again but we made it in one piece. The falls turned out to be more like Rapids than a waterfall but it was nice to do something other than shopping for an hour or so. Once we seen enough of the falls, we wandered slowly back in to Banff and decided to stop by the Banff Avenue Brewing Company for a lunch time beer. The beer was very tasty and it was lovely to be sat out on a balcony, in beautiful weather, overlooking Banff avenue. Inevitably, I picked up a glass upon our departure. We continued browsing in the shops until we'd had enough, then caught the bus back up to the hostel. It turned out to be a pretty quick turnaround, as we changed ready for an evening meal out and the time flew by. We caught the bus back in and wandered down by the river until it was time for our reservation and whilst we were down by the river, we did get treated to yet more Banff wildlife, when a female elk walked past us, on her way to having her evening drink from the river. Our reservation was at a restaurant called The Maple Leaf, which specialised in serving items sourced in Canada. After a starter of calamari for Charlotte and French onion soup for myself, our huge mains arrived. My steak looked like it had come from the Alberta’s biggest cow and Charlotte's duck was clearly the best fed when it lived in Quebec. We were paralysed by the time we finished but just about had enough manoeuvrability to remove ourselves from the restaurant and catch the bus back to the hostel.
Tuesday 30th May
Our final day in Banff was pretty brief. We popped in to town for a quick breakfast at Tim’s before returning to the hostel to await our airport shuttle pick up. The bus was bang on time at 12:30 and after a couple more pick ups, we were on the road to Calgary airport. Despite the airports size, there didn't seem to be anybody around. After we dumped our bags and made our way through passport control, we had some time to kill in the departure lounge. It was then we found out why it was so quiet; there were only 5 international flights departing between 14:00 and 22:00, so there didn't need to be anybody around, apart from the people on those flights. Just as our gate was announced, we picked up a Subway sandwich for the plane, as our attempt to book an inflight meal had failed miserably. We boarded, found our seats and settled in for the tedious 9 hours ahead of us. Fortunately, I'd had the forethought to download the Westjet app, which gave us access to free in flight entertainment through my iPad. We departed bang on time and jetted off in to the clear blue skies above Calgary, destined for what would be the end of the finest 2 years we'd ever had.
"Far away so far away down to ..."
James and Charlotte
