Kamloops and Jasper

February 6th - 9th

After some massive haggling over the price of our car we managed to secure a hugely bad boy black SUV with all-wheel drive for a decent price. Still not sure whether the bloke massively sorted us out or not as we thought after we'd agreed the price and everything that we were just getting a simple car - didn't hang around to argue though... The heated seats have been on pretty much constantly since we pulled out of the car park.

We took the optimistic view that we could drive from Vancouver to Kamloops via Whistler before it got dark. About 8 hours later and 2 hours driving in the pitch black we realised that Canada is quite a big country. It's also a country with massive log trucks all over the roads who aren't the most patient of drivers... damn hicks! Some of the temperatures on the way were down to about -7, a little bit colder than in the southern hemisphere.

Whistler was really cool, but very quiet which was a bit weird. Sarah was practically foaming at the mouth to go skiing (although she denied it), but we only had a quick walk round and a packed lunch before jumping back into the car.

On arrival at Kamloops we realised the car had turned from jet black to a lovely muddy brown.

Left early the next day after a good night's stay in a cool hostel and hit the road again to Jasper. The scenery was jaw-dropping, actually think it's better than New Zealand if that's possible. The fact that it was really sunny and everywhere was covered in about two foot of snow really made it. Temperature on the roads also got down to -17, thanks god for the heated seats.

Now we're in the 'proper Rockies' which are amazing, just MASSIVE mountains everywhere you look from the road.

Managed to stay in a homestay in Jasper (which is in alberta rather than British Columbia) as opposed to a 40 bed mixed dorm (no thanks) and only a bit more expensive. The only downside is that there was no kitchen and we had to cook using a microwave! Thankfully I'm now so tight we kept the cheapo tupperware from Australia so this came in handy and we managed to make decent pasta and rice meals during our 2 night stay.

Got the ipods out of the car in the morning and they'd frozen solid! Note to self, take everything out of the SUV overnight...

We hired some snowshoes from Jasper town centre and headed off into the wilderness to walk around Lakes Pyramid and Patricia. Was an unbelievable day and we hardly saw another soul. Was beautiful and really, really quiet - undisturbed massive snowdrifts everywhere.

The showshoes weren't too bad to walk in after a bit of practice. There was one bit though when the wind was howling across a lake when we literally made a run for the car as it was so cold. Have never felt cold like that in my life - you couldn't feel your hands if you took your gloves off to take a photo and felt like our faces were going to fall off!

Also drove up to Maligne Canyon to check out the scenery and passed a herd of bighorn sheep just wandering across one of the highways. Also saw some sort of squirrel and a deer which was having a bit of a snack. No bears though as they're all hibernating - lazy b*****s...

Jasper is also very similar to Punxsutawney from Groundhog Day, but kept that very quiet.