I have now been to Banff and Lake Louise,

Banff was lovely the hostel I stayed in was really new so it was definitely the best one I had stayed in out of them all. I went into the local town the first day I got there as we had been given a local bus pass to use for the time of my stay. It was like a smaller version of Whistler and very nice, all the streets were named after animals too. The next day I signed up to go on a tour with the hostel which was good it was a small hike down the mountain next to the river, so pretty relaxed. We stopped at one point when the guide was explaining something about the area when a Humming Bird decided it liked us and kept flying around us in a circle, unfortunately it was so fast none of us could get a picture of it but it was lovely to see one. After the hike he took us around the town a bit more and then we went back up to the hostel. The next day I went for another hike where I went up to see some rock formations called Hoodoo's which had been carved out by the weather, on the hike back I saw another coyote and then I went into town again and picked up a few things. I also booked myself in for a rafting tour down the BowRiver but unfortunately they cancelled the trip because not enough people had signed up so nothing I could do about that really.

The day after I went to Lake Louise which was lovely, the hostel didn't provide any tours which was a shame and all the company tours I had to go back to Banff to do which is a bit annoying but it doesn't matter. So I arrived pretty early so I got to go for a hike down the Bow River trail which went around and across the River through forest which was nice, I got some nice pictures from it. The trail had a lot of information boards on the local wildlife in that area too which was good to be able to read, after the hike I gotback to the centre of the village and picked up some food from the market shop for the next day. The next day I did the Hike up to Lake Louise, it only took an hour to get up and it was beautiful, luckily the sun was still out so it wasn't too cold there. The ice had all melted by this stage which was a shame as I would have liked to see the ice, oddly it was still covered with ice only the week before so it shows how fast it can melt.

But the water was lovely, a really bright blue and very clear and some people were in kayaks on the lake. I hiked on the trail around the lake which was nice and walked across the 'beach' section right at the back of it. I spent about 2 hours there and took a different trail on the way back where I saw a Pine Martin who quickly ran away when I tried to get a photo of him. When I got back to the hostel I got to meet two of my new roommates who are French Canadian and they were really nice, they ended up driving me to see Lake Moraine which I had wanted to hike up to but I left to late and the weather ended up being too bad to do it as it started raining and snowing when I left from Lake Louise. But LakeMoraine was beautiful as well, it is much higher up than Lake Louise so it was still half frozen and I saw some Pika (small rabbit like animals) up there too. When we got back from the hostel they had prepaid a meal and offered me to join them which was lovely, and also got strawberries and raspberries for pudding which was great.

So I leave in an hour or so all the way back to Vancouver which will take 12 hours on the bus if there are no delays and I should get in at 9:30pm tonight, and tomorrow I will head back to Whistler for the day just to see it in the summer again, and I can also sort out my phone and bank when there which will be handy. But that's all for now, nearly home 13 days left.

Liz x