Wow what a day! It started like any other, we got got up and had breakfast and then got in the van and drove to Edith Cavell where we took a short walk up a little hill to admire the lake and saw a mini avalanche. Unfortunately we couldn't go up to the next level as there were aggressive grizzly bears in the area so instead we admire the view, looked for bears (which we didn't see) and some people made inukshuks. We then made our way down the hill and drove back to Jasper where we had some free time so Jas and I went souvenir shopping and I bought the biggest and yummiest ice cream for my lunch.

After lunch was when the real excitement happened as we got back in the van and made our way toward Maligne Lake. On the way we saw a couple of cars pulled up by the side of the road so stopped to see what they were looking at and were lucky enough to see a black bear by the side of the road. So we sat and watched this for a while before moving on.

As we came around the corner and stopped at Madison Lakes Martin was explaining to us about the lake and Leah and I were chatting about how the people could be looking at the lake and be totally oblivious that there might be a bear behind them and just at that point we turned around and saw you guessed it, another bear. So we stood and admired the bear before then looking at the view. We drove on a little further and saw a bald eagle nest with baby eagles in (eaglets?).

From here we drove to Maligne Lake where we walked around and took yet more photos. We then headed back to the hotel and stopped on the way to look at the Eagles nest only to discover that in fact there was also a bear so we stood and watched our next bear and also watched the eagle too. The bear was starting to get a little close so we jumped back in the van and continued our journey and saw 2 more bears ambling along the side of the road!! We stayed and watched these bear for a while before being moved on by the rangers as they were a mating pair.

So we drove back to town and grabbed a pizza and ice cream before getting our swimmers on and going to the hot springs!

The hot springs weren't quite what I was imagining. I thought they would be a little bit like Iceland with the mud and condensation and rocks but it was more like 4 different sized swimming pools of different temperatures (40, 38, 22 and 10 degrees) where you sat around and chatted!

So after experiencing the hot and cold probably pools we drove back to the hotel and on the way Patty spotted a bear walking along the side of the road so we turned around to go and find it. Suddenly there were 2 bears walking along the side of the road, crossing the road and generally not being bothered by us! So we watched the bears and then drove back to the hotel where we saw more elk and then I went to bed after a very exciting day!