Hi everyone,

I left Vancouver on Saturday morning with the Moose tour. We went past Bridal Falls then headed towards the Cascades mountains. We then passed through the desert! It stretches up all the way from Mexico and everything is dry and orangey looking. We then went through Kamloops, a 1st Nation people's town and then back into green and stopped at Shuswap Lake for the night. We travelled 540km the first day.

Next day we headed through more mountains(in fact it was mountains all the way from Vancouver, they just get bigger and bigger). We went through Rogers pass, which is the highest mountain pass in Canada, had lunch and then headed towards the natural bridge and Emerald Lake. Emerald lake is really green. The rivers and lakes either have a blue or green colour from the rock flour suspended in it from where the glaciers scrape the rocks. We arrived in Banff in the Rockies at 5pm mountain time. Banff is a beautiful place set in mountains and with a river running through. The town is all wooden buildings. We left this morning and went to some waterfalls which were fantastic. You could go through a mini cave to view it up close, but I slipped on the ice and went flying, ha ha! The ice is staring to build already and there are icicles everywhere. They look really white because of the limestone. We went past Castle mountain, surprisingly shaped like a castle. and then through more scenery to Lake Louise.

Lake Louise is beautiful, a brilliant blue. There were tourists everywhere. I'm staying the night at the local hostel and will join another Moose bus tomorrow. We are going camping in a rustic lodge outside Jasper - there is no running water so we will all smell the next day!!!