banff

banff covered in cloud and fog

ice explorer that takes tourists onto glaciers at jasper

banff gondola

full length of gondola

very cloudy at the top

Wednesday 9th June

Today we had decided to spend the day in Banff and check out the local shops and the gondola before heading to Calgary. Had some breakfast in the motel and then went outside to find it overcast, raining and some what foggy over the mountains. When I first went out you could not even see the mountains that backdrop Banff. We did go for a walk around the town and have a look in a few shops and bought a couple of bits and pieces. We then thought that we would drive to the Banff gondola and see if it was going to be worth going to the top due to the clouds etc. At the start of the gondola they had one of the ice explorers on display that takes groups of people onto the glaciers near Jasper. They were huge and as you can see on the photo above they have massive tyres.

Took a couple of photos of the clouded in mountains as you can also see by the photo above. The gondola went to the top of Sulphur Mountain which is at 2281 metres above sea level and 690 metres above the start of the gondola ride. We stood and looked to the top which was covered in cloud and so were the others 6 mountains ranges. The gondola ride was $30 each and we decided to save our money as the view would be very poor.

It was then time to leave and head for Calgary. We stopped off at Canmore to have some Subway for lunch. It was then only just over 100 kms to Calgary and it poured with rain the whole way. The rain was so hard that we almost had to stop as we could not see. We arrived safe and well at Calgary and made our way to Jade's house. Jade arrived home a few minutes after we arrived and we sat and caught up with her for a while as it was about 2 years since we last saw her. We had to go out then and buy a blow up mattress as Jade did not have any spare beds. We bought a really super dooper air mattress that blows up with its own motor, good ol Walmart they have cool stuff! And it was comfy and cheap, double bonus.

Later that night we went out for dinner with Jade to The Keg Steakhouse and Bar. The food was quite nice and Bronte and I decided to have the special, dungeonous crab and sirloin steak. When the meal came out it was actualy half a crab still in its shell. I have to say Bronte was not too happy, the way the waiter explained the meal to us was as if the crab meat was in a butter sauce over the top of the steak.....WRONG!!! It was really hard to eat but I found it very nice. From there we went to a bottle o and got some drinks and took them back to Jade's. We sat around for a few hours and caught up on all the things that we had all been up to since we last saw each other.

Thursday we are going to spend the day in downtown Calgary, should be good. We are also going out on Thursday night with Jade and some of her work friends, one of which is from good old Adelaide.