Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Chapter 3 - from the Great Canadian outback
So we made it up to Jasper where our awesome bus driver John from the amazingly reasonable bus company Sun Dog (is that your dog) dropped us 20 paces from the front door. Here is where maps and town infrastructure really would have helped our choice on accommodation for our stay in Jasper. You see, had we known that the hostel was 3 km out of town and a further 3 km up hill into bundoo’s valley, we would’ve probably searched for ulterior rooms in town. Now before you think we were crazy and don’t do any research what so ever, we had phoned the hostel call desk to inquire as to whether there was any form of public transport to and from the hostel. We found out that they had a shuttle which ran free once a day to and then back later on. So we arrived at this completely different hostel in freezing cold weather where the first thing you had to do – basically outside in the freezing cold – was to take your shoes off. Man!!! Anyway, we successfully logged in for the night in a single room with no diseased Andrew. The only problem was we noted that the shuttle service was not available (Cancelled was the term used). The next best option was to put your name on a board to share a taxi ride which we did very quickly and thankfully had an Australian chick Kelly join us. I feel like I am forgetting some very important details to this tale – oh ja, the freaking taxi fare was $16 one way. I said ONE WAY! What?????
Okay, my freak out is over for now. So we spent most of our hostel evening re-sourcing new places within the town so we wouldn’t have to pay this in exorbitant amount of money. Waking up the next day – still feeling under the weather – we decided to risk it and head for town having phoned this one B&B who had some vacancy for the nights we needed it. Thankfully, we made it into town even though our taxi driver forgot to fetch us where we reached the B&B and found a safe haven for the next few days. We spent the rest of our afternoon exploring Jasper which actually took us about an hour to walk the whole town. Since there wasn’t much to do around the town, we signed up for a canyon ice walk as our Big exciting adventurous activity. Returning to our new home, we met the real owner Sherrill who runs the B&B and has spent a load of her own life traveling the world exploring many destinations. We had some amazing conversations with Sherrill where she told us of her stays in Hill Brow in 1990 and of her hitch hiking tour of South Africa during the same year. She was quite a Brave – her term for nuts – lady who ran a really awesome and homely B&B.
Enough of that though, I’m sure most of you are very interested in this canyon ice walk and if you are not, shame on you but keep reading. So the greatest luxury of all with our tour was that the bus company actually came to our front door to pick us up. Never had that before! Our tour guide then drove us into town to their boot and ice cleat store where she got each of us a pair of Wellington boots for snow and water protection and some small ice cleats which attached to the boots. The reason I say the ice cleats were small was because Ang and I both thought we were gonna get the same cleats as we saw on some ice climbers in the canyon. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself now. So having been clobbered up with the right gear, we then headed around to the Maligne canyon where our ice walk expedition was soon to begin. For those French speakers among our readers, and for those who have some Belgium blood in them (weird sharing a border with the Dutch), the canyon was named by a Belgium missionary who came to the canyon to change natives lives only to be stumped by the powerful river which wiped out his horse and nearly killed him. So he cursed it, calling it the Maligne canyon meaning ‘evil’.
Our first activity was to step out on the swinging bridge and rock it until someone came close to throwing up. Not really but I did try! Having successfully caused enough turbulence on a swinging bridge we moved quickly up the mountain towards the canyon wall. Our guide was very knowledgeable of the wildlife and of the history of the canyon which came in very handy for us peeps who knew nothing. As we started our hike the river was flowing solid with no icing over and as we began to climb higher up we noticed that the river iced over very quickly. The reason, we soon learnt, was because the river at the bottom was being fed by a significant underwater current which gave it enough power to keep on flowing throughout winter – no matter what the temperature. Incredible!! Now generally, the guides prefer you to experience the view of the canyon from the base looking up and out but our guide was cool. She took us up to the top first and we got to look down on this magnificently created piece of art. What makes it so amazingly beautiful is the fact that it isn’t really a waterfall in summer – just a steady dripping tap of water which most people don’t even notice. But then in winter, due to the cold it begins to freeze and build up creating a huge ice waterfall inside this canyon. Now I have already mentioned that we got to see ice climber hiking up the side of this amazing architecture. I caught some of this on a video which I will try to load on.
Eventually we were able to go down and see the canyon the way it is supposed to be viewed. Here is where the saying, you had to be there comes into effect. I’m not sure how many of our readers have experienced walking on water (ok ice), but for those who haven’t, it is one of the freakiest things we have done. Basically, we had the knowledge that this ice we were standing on is generally a powerfully flowing river through the canyon in the summer time. Putting your mind through that brain teaser as we were standing on this solid surface really freaked me out. Anyway, we got over it rather quickly when we began walking and one of the sheaths of ice began to crack beneath us and we fell into water. Whoa!!! I bet you’re all thinking we fell into a huge pool of ice water and began to freeze. NOT!! The thin top sheath was only about 2 inches deep and as we began to walk on the surface it cracked releasing the pressure of our weights and sending us into the layer of water beneath it. This too was only about a foot deep before we were standing on a really solid piece of ice about 10-12 inches deep. For humans to be able to walk on ice, it has to be between 5-7 inches thick so we felt fairly safe – even though we had just fallen into water and freaked out big time because the ice had cracked. It is such an uncomfortable feeling hearing this noise and knowing that it should not be cracking otherwise this could be the end of the line for all of us. I think it was just our guide having some fun with us.
So eventually we made it to the first waterfall called Angel Falls. Magnificent! A photo will never capture the experience and the beauty of these waterfalls but I will put them on anyway. At this waterfall there was an enclosed ice cavern where we were able to throw two of our party inside to explore and get soaked inside a cave of ice. Weird! Wish I wasn’t so big otherwise I definitely would’ve cracked the nod to enter and explore. But we saved the best for last as we made our way up to the Queen – the big mama. As some of the photos illustrate, we had to wait for the ice climbers to finish their route as they usually sent a cascade of ice particles down the side of the Queen and flying to the ground where they could pip you on the head one time. Again, words are very hard to come by to describe how amazingly beautiful these giant handcrafted natural ice cascades truly are. One of the most exciting experiences of this hike was still to come. Once down in the canyon there is another layer of thin ice which you can walk on to get around the first bend where you can see where the river comes from. The scary thing is that as we walked in a line separated by a meter gap, we could still hear the ice beneath us cracking. This time though we were prepared for it and even though the sound made me nervous, it was exciting and adrenaline rushing to be walking on water. We would definitely do it again.
Unfortunately though, we eventually had to say goodbye to all this natural beauty and head back to town where our adventure would end. Again, the taxi made a stop 20 meters away from our front door. Incredible!! This was also to be the last action we would have in Jasper before we had to say farewell and board our Greyhound bus on our 9 hour journey through to Kelowna to our new home at the Chings residence. Thus ends chapter three of our adventure and means you will have to wait for chapter four to find out more.
So we made it up to Jasper where our awesome bus driver John from the amazingly reasonable bus company Sun Dog (is that your dog) dropped us 20 paces from the front door. Here is where maps and town infrastructure really would have helped our choice on accommodation for our stay in Jasper. You see, had we known that the hostel was 3 km out of town and a further 3 km up hill into bundoo’s valley, we would’ve probably searched for ulterior rooms in town. Now before you think we were crazy and don’t do any research what so ever, we had phoned the hostel call desk to inquire as to whether there was any form of public transport to and from the hostel. We found out that they had a shuttle which ran free once a day to and then back later on. So we arrived at this completely different hostel in freezing cold weather where the first thing you had to do – basically outside in the freezing cold – was to take your shoes off. Man!!! Anyway, we successfully logged in for the night in a single room with no diseased Andrew. The only problem was we noted that the shuttle service was not available (Cancelled was the term used). The next best option was to put your name on a board to share a taxi ride which we did very quickly and thankfully had an Australian chick Kelly join us. I feel like I am forgetting some very important details to this tale – oh ja, the freaking taxi fare was $16 one way. I said ONE WAY! What?????
Okay, my freak out is over for now. So we spent most of our hostel evening re-sourcing new places within the town so we wouldn’t have to pay this in exorbitant amount of money. Waking up the next day – still feeling under the weather – we decided to risk it and head for town having phoned this one B&B who had some vacancy for the nights we needed it. Thankfully, we made it into town even though our taxi driver forgot to fetch us where we reached the B&B and found a safe haven for the next few days. We spent the rest of our afternoon exploring Jasper which actually took us about an hour to walk the whole town. Since there wasn’t much to do around the town, we signed up for a canyon ice walk as our Big exciting adventurous activity. Returning to our new home, we met the real owner Sherrill who runs the B&B and has spent a load of her own life traveling the world exploring many destinations. We had some amazing conversations with Sherrill where she told us of her stays in Hill Brow in 1990 and of her hitch hiking tour of South Africa during the same year. She was quite a Brave – her term for nuts – lady who ran a really awesome and homely B&B.
Enough of that though, I’m sure most of you are very interested in this canyon ice walk and if you are not, shame on you but keep reading. So the greatest luxury of all with our tour was that the bus company actually came to our front door to pick us up. Never had that before! Our tour guide then drove us into town to their boot and ice cleat store where she got each of us a pair of Wellington boots for snow and water protection and some small ice cleats which attached to the boots. The reason I say the ice cleats were small was because Ang and I both thought we were gonna get the same cleats as we saw on some ice climbers in the canyon. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself now. So having been clobbered up with the right gear, we then headed around to the Maligne canyon where our ice walk expedition was soon to begin. For those French speakers among our readers, and for those who have some Belgium blood in them (weird sharing a border with the Dutch), the canyon was named by a Belgium missionary who came to the canyon to change natives lives only to be stumped by the powerful river which wiped out his horse and nearly killed him. So he cursed it, calling it the Maligne canyon meaning ‘evil’.
Our first activity was to step out on the swinging bridge and rock it until someone came close to throwing up. Not really but I did try! Having successfully caused enough turbulence on a swinging bridge we moved quickly up the mountain towards the canyon wall. Our guide was very knowledgeable of the wildlife and of the history of the canyon which came in very handy for us peeps who knew nothing. As we started our hike the river was flowing solid with no icing over and as we began to climb higher up we noticed that the river iced over very quickly. The reason, we soon learnt, was because the river at the bottom was being fed by a significant underwater current which gave it enough power to keep on flowing throughout winter – no matter what the temperature. Incredible!! Now generally, the guides prefer you to experience the view of the canyon from the base looking up and out but our guide was cool. She took us up to the top first and we got to look down on this magnificently created piece of art. What makes it so amazingly beautiful is the fact that it isn’t really a waterfall in summer – just a steady dripping tap of water which most people don’t even notice. But then in winter, due to the cold it begins to freeze and build up creating a huge ice waterfall inside this canyon. Now I have already mentioned that we got to see ice climber hiking up the side of this amazing architecture. I caught some of this on a video which I will try to load on.
Eventually we were able to go down and see the canyon the way it is supposed to be viewed. Here is where the saying, you had to be there comes into effect. I’m not sure how many of our readers have experienced walking on water (ok ice), but for those who haven’t, it is one of the freakiest things we have done. Basically, we had the knowledge that this ice we were standing on is generally a powerfully flowing river through the canyon in the summer time. Putting your mind through that brain teaser as we were standing on this solid surface really freaked me out. Anyway, we got over it rather quickly when we began walking and one of the sheaths of ice began to crack beneath us and we fell into water. Whoa!!! I bet you’re all thinking we fell into a huge pool of ice water and began to freeze. NOT!! The thin top sheath was only about 2 inches deep and as we began to walk on the surface it cracked releasing the pressure of our weights and sending us into the layer of water beneath it. This too was only about a foot deep before we were standing on a really solid piece of ice about 10-12 inches deep. For humans to be able to walk on ice, it has to be between 5-7 inches thick so we felt fairly safe – even though we had just fallen into water and freaked out big time because the ice had cracked. It is such an uncomfortable feeling hearing this noise and knowing that it should not be cracking otherwise this could be the end of the line for all of us. I think it was just our guide having some fun with us.
So eventually we made it to the first waterfall called Angel Falls. Magnificent! A photo will never capture the experience and the beauty of these waterfalls but I will put them on anyway. At this waterfall there was an enclosed ice cavern where we were able to throw two of our party inside to explore and get soaked inside a cave of ice. Weird! Wish I wasn’t so big otherwise I definitely would’ve cracked the nod to enter and explore. But we saved the best for last as we made our way up to the Queen – the big mama. As some of the photos illustrate, we had to wait for the ice climbers to finish their route as they usually sent a cascade of ice particles down the side of the Queen and flying to the ground where they could pip you on the head one time. Again, words are very hard to come by to describe how amazingly beautiful these giant handcrafted natural ice cascades truly are. One of the most exciting experiences of this hike was still to come. Once down in the canyon there is another layer of thin ice which you can walk on to get around the first bend where you can see where the river comes from. The scary thing is that as we walked in a line separated by a meter gap, we could still hear the ice beneath us cracking. This time though we were prepared for it and even though the sound made me nervous, it was exciting and adrenaline rushing to be walking on water. We would definitely do it again.
Unfortunately though, we eventually had to say goodbye to all this natural beauty and head back to town where our adventure would end. Again, the taxi made a stop 20 meters away from our front door. Incredible!! This was also to be the last action we would have in Jasper before we had to say farewell and board our Greyhound bus on our 9 hour journey through to Kelowna to our new home at the Chings residence. Thus ends chapter three of our adventure and means you will have to wait for chapter four to find out more.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
chapter two
Chapter 2 – from the Great Canadian outback
We spent a couple of days in Calgary doing the old touristy things like the zoo and the shopping circuit and so on until we decided one day we should go up the Calgary Tower. Now everything we had seen of this tower made it look famous and out of this world awesome. I wasn’t too impressed but it gave us a really cool view of the whole of downtown Calgary and just about everywhere we had already walked. Our photos only illustrate how yucky and dusty everything looks because of the snow which has stuck around for almost 2 months turning very icy and slippery and then of course there is the dirt and salt they use to try and clean it all up – I just thought it made sludge and brown snow. But it was amazing to see the Rockies from up top and feel so close to them. A picture speaks better than these words so I will put one in just for you all.
Eventually it was time for us to move on to the actual solo adventure and head for the real outback in the far off Canadian Rockies. We had planned to go into Banff National Park and Jasper National Park for a few days only to discover that bus tickets were cheaper if we stayed a little longer – forgetting to factor in the price of accommodation for the extra nights. It must have been part of the plan otherwise I think we wouldn’t have had the amazing adventures we did in both these small touristy towns. Thanks to the Course family again for their generosity, they kindly helped us out in driving right into Banff where they took us up to the very top of one point in the Rockies. The ride is known as the Gondola which is a really fun ride up in a cable car to a spot overlooking the town. Once at the peak you can still walk all over the summit of a nearby mountain for better panoramic views. Since our camera has the ability Ang and I tried to put a panoramic shot together. Let us know what you think about it.
After this we quickly moved on to Lake Louise as we were not going to make this stop on our trip but Doug and Elmarie felt we really had to go to see how the lake looked in winter all frozen up. It was creepy walking on the surface of a huge pile of water which was frozen due to the water coming from a glacier nearby. What we didn’t know was that the one hotel makes ice sculptures of various animals just around the ice and we had so much fun exploring around all this differing beauty. The coolest or scariest thing for me was going on the iced lake and trying my hand at sliding in my shoes. Ang was braver than I and she attempted to skate on the ice. It was so much fun – even though the temp was sitting well below 0C. Unfortunately we had to keep moving and eventually had to say farewell to our Calgary family when they left us at our Hostel in Banff. Now the fun was about to begin…
For us, this was the first time we would stay in a hostel together and it was a little daunting. I decided to try and save us some money by placing us in a small commune of 6 rather than the huge dorm rooms and instead of spending more on single room spaciousness. As we soon realized, single room spaciousness was worth the extra money they charged. One of our room mates – Andrew – was a Canadian party animal except he never went out to party, barely ate anything, loved FABREEZE and spent most hours of the waking day Farting, Burping or Coughing. If he wasn’t doing these three favorites, then he was alternatively drawing, drinking or sleeping (snoring). And fortunately for Ang and I, we were both able to acquire his strange disease as we both caught the bug he was sharing every minute. But Banff was more about the beautiful town and the awesome night life and all the natural beauty which we attempted to explore with out limited time.
We spent a day exploring the town and its infrastructure – meaning the shops for the guys reading. It was a beautifully designed town, very old and close knit where you felt like welcome even though we were just passing through. Of course everything was way too pricy that we spent tons of our time browsing and window shopping and didn’t really buy much. Instead we spent our money wisely on a nice outdoor swim in the Banff natural hot springs. I’m pretty sure most people think I’m joking when I say outdoor hot springs were open in winter – guess what so did we till we got through the doors and climbed very quickly in to the warm water to escape the cold weather. This too could factor into our diseased state – but we prefer the Andrew factor. Even though we felt mad swimming with the snow around us, it was so much fun and we just had to do it. Now for those of you who care a lot about wildlife, we found out that the old springs had to be closed down due to a natural snail that lived in the hot water which was being killed by the BIG people swimming around. Poor snails….
We did have a run in with some deer that decided to invade our hike on the last day in Banff. I suppose we felt invaded because he tried to walk right up to us to see if we had any good snacks with us as twigs and dried up bark was getting so old. Anyway, we moved on quickly to our next stop in Jasper, only a 4 hour drive away but with some of the most amazing landscape markers along the way. The main one of these was the Columbia Ice fields which exist all year round but are only open to public viewing up close during the summer months. We were unsure why it was closed because it still looked an incredible sight as this huge slab of ice lay on the mountain and didn’t melt all year round. It gets fed by one of the nearby glaciers which obviously keeps it seriously cold – facts from our bus driver John. Eventually we arrived at our next hostel in Jasper and you will have to catch the rest on our next installment of Ross and Angie’s adventure.
We spent a couple of days in Calgary doing the old touristy things like the zoo and the shopping circuit and so on until we decided one day we should go up the Calgary Tower. Now everything we had seen of this tower made it look famous and out of this world awesome. I wasn’t too impressed but it gave us a really cool view of the whole of downtown Calgary and just about everywhere we had already walked. Our photos only illustrate how yucky and dusty everything looks because of the snow which has stuck around for almost 2 months turning very icy and slippery and then of course there is the dirt and salt they use to try and clean it all up – I just thought it made sludge and brown snow. But it was amazing to see the Rockies from up top and feel so close to them. A picture speaks better than these words so I will put one in just for you all.
Eventually it was time for us to move on to the actual solo adventure and head for the real outback in the far off Canadian Rockies. We had planned to go into Banff National Park and Jasper National Park for a few days only to discover that bus tickets were cheaper if we stayed a little longer – forgetting to factor in the price of accommodation for the extra nights. It must have been part of the plan otherwise I think we wouldn’t have had the amazing adventures we did in both these small touristy towns. Thanks to the Course family again for their generosity, they kindly helped us out in driving right into Banff where they took us up to the very top of one point in the Rockies. The ride is known as the Gondola which is a really fun ride up in a cable car to a spot overlooking the town. Once at the peak you can still walk all over the summit of a nearby mountain for better panoramic views. Since our camera has the ability Ang and I tried to put a panoramic shot together. Let us know what you think about it.
After this we quickly moved on to Lake Louise as we were not going to make this stop on our trip but Doug and Elmarie felt we really had to go to see how the lake looked in winter all frozen up. It was creepy walking on the surface of a huge pile of water which was frozen due to the water coming from a glacier nearby. What we didn’t know was that the one hotel makes ice sculptures of various animals just around the ice and we had so much fun exploring around all this differing beauty. The coolest or scariest thing for me was going on the iced lake and trying my hand at sliding in my shoes. Ang was braver than I and she attempted to skate on the ice. It was so much fun – even though the temp was sitting well below 0C. Unfortunately we had to keep moving and eventually had to say farewell to our Calgary family when they left us at our Hostel in Banff. Now the fun was about to begin…
For us, this was the first time we would stay in a hostel together and it was a little daunting. I decided to try and save us some money by placing us in a small commune of 6 rather than the huge dorm rooms and instead of spending more on single room spaciousness. As we soon realized, single room spaciousness was worth the extra money they charged. One of our room mates – Andrew – was a Canadian party animal except he never went out to party, barely ate anything, loved FABREEZE and spent most hours of the waking day Farting, Burping or Coughing. If he wasn’t doing these three favorites, then he was alternatively drawing, drinking or sleeping (snoring). And fortunately for Ang and I, we were both able to acquire his strange disease as we both caught the bug he was sharing every minute. But Banff was more about the beautiful town and the awesome night life and all the natural beauty which we attempted to explore with out limited time.
We spent a day exploring the town and its infrastructure – meaning the shops for the guys reading. It was a beautifully designed town, very old and close knit where you felt like welcome even though we were just passing through. Of course everything was way too pricy that we spent tons of our time browsing and window shopping and didn’t really buy much. Instead we spent our money wisely on a nice outdoor swim in the Banff natural hot springs. I’m pretty sure most people think I’m joking when I say outdoor hot springs were open in winter – guess what so did we till we got through the doors and climbed very quickly in to the warm water to escape the cold weather. This too could factor into our diseased state – but we prefer the Andrew factor. Even though we felt mad swimming with the snow around us, it was so much fun and we just had to do it. Now for those of you who care a lot about wildlife, we found out that the old springs had to be closed down due to a natural snail that lived in the hot water which was being killed by the BIG people swimming around. Poor snails….
We did have a run in with some deer that decided to invade our hike on the last day in Banff. I suppose we felt invaded because he tried to walk right up to us to see if we had any good snacks with us as twigs and dried up bark was getting so old. Anyway, we moved on quickly to our next stop in Jasper, only a 4 hour drive away but with some of the most amazing landscape markers along the way. The main one of these was the Columbia Ice fields which exist all year round but are only open to public viewing up close during the summer months. We were unsure why it was closed because it still looked an incredible sight as this huge slab of ice lay on the mountain and didn’t melt all year round. It gets fed by one of the nearby glaciers which obviously keeps it seriously cold – facts from our bus driver John. Eventually we arrived at our next hostel in Jasper and you will have to catch the rest on our next installment of Ross and Angie’s adventure.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
the adventure begins
Welcome to Ross and Angie’s update on their Adventure’s in The Great Canadian Outback.
I suppose the best place to begin is right at the beginning. So there we were two against 10 000 … sorry that is the wrong adventure. So there we were preparing to board my first, our first flight out of Johannesburg and into the great unknown. For those who don’t know this was to be my maiden voyage from South Africa whilst my darling wife has been out and about for a many a moons to many worldly destinations.
But enough of that rambling on and on and on… so we boarded the Lufthansa flight from Jozi to Frankfurt (a sweet 10 hour flight) eagerly awaiting the loads of tv shows and movies we could watch on this really long flight. Guess what!!! We had the unfortunate time of only being able to watch the movie of the flight which was called The Women. There are no men in this lame movie – made the 10 hour flight seem so long… Frankfurt was CCCCCccccooooollllllllddddd. We did the whole compare and contrast prices with the exchange rate and it was cheaper in Frankfurt than in SA. Although we have found that food and drinks are pretty pricy (EVERYWHERE). It was a short delay before we kept on moving leaving Frankfurt for our desired destination of Calgary Canada. I was so relieved when we boarded our new flight and had individual screens and so many choices of what to watch – the dream had finally come true. But that is just the flight details so I think its time to get to the juicier details of our experiences thus far.
Calgary, like Joburg in city looks yet probably only a blip on a radar screen if by comparison. They only just reached 1 million inhabitants and were very proud to share that stat with us. Meeting Trace’s aunt and uncle was a wonderful experience as Doug and Elmarie Course and their two boys Kevin and Michael opened up their house to us strangers and welcomed us in to make a mess and cause a little bit of chaos in their lives. It turned out that they were fairly busy that week we arrived but it meant we could get on our explorer shoes and discover Calgary for ourselves which is half the fun. Of course, Calgary has a new bus and train system designed for easy access and roaming around downtown Calgary and from the south west point where we were staying with the Course family.
So we left for our first exploring of Calgary on Wednesday morning only to miss the bus by probably 2 minutes which resulted in us walking down to the train station. Not a bad experience as we got our trudge on in and around the snow which was still quite thick even though they were experiencing warm weather (-3C). The reason for the warmer climate which we were not expecting was that in Calgary they get Chinook winds. Now for the weather experts amongst our readers and those who really enjoy weather talk, a Chinook wind is a warmer wind which blows through middle and lower Alberta changing the -20C weather to a more modest and very pleasant -3C weather. So for traveling SA peops who left sunny SA at around 25C, the warmer and closer to 0C we can get we would take it. The scary thing walking was the ice and how slippery the surface got even with great gripping shoes like ours weren’t from sunny SA. And as I usually do, who was the first one to test how cold snow and ice really feels. You guessed right, it was me as I respectfully flew off my feet right down onto my backside showing all the grace and composure of a really huge wrestler taking down his opponent. Eventually we made it on the train only to find out that we had not validated our train passes for that trip. Do you wish to know how we found out our passes were not valid – this I must mention probably speaks loads of how Ang and my luck has been going and changing since our run in with the Kruger road hog – we were cautioned but not fined luckily by a Peace officer who climbed on the train 2 stops after we got on. Timing definetly is everything, had we caught the bus we wouldn’t have had any problems and had someone on the train station been helpful enough we could’ve avoided this crazy episode but we learnt very quickly how the whole system works. Thankfully the officer heard or saw we were from out of Canada and graciously gave us a warning and not a fine of $150.
We rode the train through to city centre before crossing over and heading through to the Calgary zoo. The zoo looked magnificent and it wasn’t too chilly as we walked that zoo solid taking photos of every single animal till our batteries ran dead. Oh ja I forgot, we didn’t remember to pack spare batteries so here we are experiencing one of Calgary’s highlights and our camera is dead with tons of wild animals to photograph in their classic poses. Thankfully I have a genius for a wife and we were lucky enough to find a store inside which had batteries and our escapade could continue. To preview these and many more pics taken, please visit our facebook pages and for those who are unfortunately not our friends there, you can still check out the pics. Next installment coming soon from Ross and Angie’s adventure to the great Canadian outback.
I suppose the best place to begin is right at the beginning. So there we were two against 10 000 … sorry that is the wrong adventure. So there we were preparing to board my first, our first flight out of Johannesburg and into the great unknown. For those who don’t know this was to be my maiden voyage from South Africa whilst my darling wife has been out and about for a many a moons to many worldly destinations.
But enough of that rambling on and on and on… so we boarded the Lufthansa flight from Jozi to Frankfurt (a sweet 10 hour flight) eagerly awaiting the loads of tv shows and movies we could watch on this really long flight. Guess what!!! We had the unfortunate time of only being able to watch the movie of the flight which was called The Women. There are no men in this lame movie – made the 10 hour flight seem so long… Frankfurt was CCCCCccccooooollllllllddddd. We did the whole compare and contrast prices with the exchange rate and it was cheaper in Frankfurt than in SA. Although we have found that food and drinks are pretty pricy (EVERYWHERE). It was a short delay before we kept on moving leaving Frankfurt for our desired destination of Calgary Canada. I was so relieved when we boarded our new flight and had individual screens and so many choices of what to watch – the dream had finally come true. But that is just the flight details so I think its time to get to the juicier details of our experiences thus far.
Calgary, like Joburg in city looks yet probably only a blip on a radar screen if by comparison. They only just reached 1 million inhabitants and were very proud to share that stat with us. Meeting Trace’s aunt and uncle was a wonderful experience as Doug and Elmarie Course and their two boys Kevin and Michael opened up their house to us strangers and welcomed us in to make a mess and cause a little bit of chaos in their lives. It turned out that they were fairly busy that week we arrived but it meant we could get on our explorer shoes and discover Calgary for ourselves which is half the fun. Of course, Calgary has a new bus and train system designed for easy access and roaming around downtown Calgary and from the south west point where we were staying with the Course family.
So we left for our first exploring of Calgary on Wednesday morning only to miss the bus by probably 2 minutes which resulted in us walking down to the train station. Not a bad experience as we got our trudge on in and around the snow which was still quite thick even though they were experiencing warm weather (-3C). The reason for the warmer climate which we were not expecting was that in Calgary they get Chinook winds. Now for the weather experts amongst our readers and those who really enjoy weather talk, a Chinook wind is a warmer wind which blows through middle and lower Alberta changing the -20C weather to a more modest and very pleasant -3C weather. So for traveling SA peops who left sunny SA at around 25C, the warmer and closer to 0C we can get we would take it. The scary thing walking was the ice and how slippery the surface got even with great gripping shoes like ours weren’t from sunny SA. And as I usually do, who was the first one to test how cold snow and ice really feels. You guessed right, it was me as I respectfully flew off my feet right down onto my backside showing all the grace and composure of a really huge wrestler taking down his opponent. Eventually we made it on the train only to find out that we had not validated our train passes for that trip. Do you wish to know how we found out our passes were not valid – this I must mention probably speaks loads of how Ang and my luck has been going and changing since our run in with the Kruger road hog – we were cautioned but not fined luckily by a Peace officer who climbed on the train 2 stops after we got on. Timing definetly is everything, had we caught the bus we wouldn’t have had any problems and had someone on the train station been helpful enough we could’ve avoided this crazy episode but we learnt very quickly how the whole system works. Thankfully the officer heard or saw we were from out of Canada and graciously gave us a warning and not a fine of $150.
We rode the train through to city centre before crossing over and heading through to the Calgary zoo. The zoo looked magnificent and it wasn’t too chilly as we walked that zoo solid taking photos of every single animal till our batteries ran dead. Oh ja I forgot, we didn’t remember to pack spare batteries so here we are experiencing one of Calgary’s highlights and our camera is dead with tons of wild animals to photograph in their classic poses. Thankfully I have a genius for a wife and we were lucky enough to find a store inside which had batteries and our escapade could continue. To preview these and many more pics taken, please visit our facebook pages and for those who are unfortunately not our friends there, you can still check out the pics. Next installment coming soon from Ross and Angie’s adventure to the great Canadian outback.
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