So today started with some breakfast and then a walk to Calgary Tower to meet my tour group to the Badlands. So after a brisk walk to the Tower my coach turned up! I was a little concerned that I was in the wrong place as I couldn't see anyone else but it turned out it was only me and one other girl on the tour (and she was Japanese and didn't really speak English)!

So we drove to Drumheller stopping on the way to admire the Horseshoe Canyon. This didn't impress me as much as I thought it would but I think I was a little bit spoilt by the amazing scenery of last week and this just wasn't as dramatic.

From Horseshoe Canyon we drove to the Atlas Coal Mines where I explored the exhibits and houses/huts set up as different mining rooms. I then looked at the coaling machinery before going on a guided tour of the coal mines. So we collected our hard hats and lamps and made our way up the mining tunnel to the mine. Because of the type of mine we were at we didn't go down but up and then into the side of the cliff. We found out all about the mines and experienced the darkness of the mine when we all turned our lights off and it was definitely dark! From here we headed out of the mine and visited the blacksmiths before seeing part of the mine. We then made our way back down the side of the valley to return our hard hats and then move on to our next location, the Hoodoos. The Hoodoos are 'geological wonders', towers of stone which have over time be eroded and warn down.

From here we were ahead of schedule so we're able to cross the suspension bridge that the miners used to cross to get to the mines.

After the suspension bridge we went to the Royal Tyrell Museum, the largest palaeontology museum in Canada. Named after Joseph Tyrrell went to the Badlands to look for coal and found a dinosaur bone which led to further discoveries around the area. So I explored the museum which was a little bit like the Natural History Museum (I thought I was going to be able to look for fossils) and saw lots of dinosaur skeletons and then explored the Badlands a little more.

From here we drove back to the Calgary Tower passing a Hutterian Brethen Community on the way. Also on the way I saw a red-tailed hawk and a deer of some description, maybe a white-tailed deer. During the day I also saw some ground squirrels, sparrows, swallows and a wren.

When I got back to the hotel I had some dinner, packed my bag and had another chilled out evening before my last day on my own tomorrow before my tour starts tomorrow evening.