Lol ok... after some time we finally have internet access again and some time to upload. So I will continue updating from after we left Banff.

It was a long way to Jasper... we were very tired by the time we got there. But we did travel through the Icefields Parkway which is a beautiful drive.

We managed to find accommodation immediately in a lovely B&B. Walking out of the restaurant we were eating at that evening, we see two moose?!? Eating grass from the central strip... rofl!

On going around Jasper the next day, guess what, there was a bear... not more then 100 meters away from the nearest shop!!! Of course, we stopped the car, approached the bear and took some photos and video. EXACTLY contrary to what all signs and warnings regarding bears said! I.e. you should stay in a car when you spot a bear, and never, EVER approach him.
Shortly a ranger arrived to drive the bear away. That is when we noticed there were actually TWOOO bears! At that point we realized why the warnings made sense... While you were looking at one bear and paying attention to his movements, the other bear may attack you from behind and you would not notice a thing :-D.

On to Maligne Canyon, we went for a short walk to some waterfalls and then on to Maligne Lake. We finally decided that we could go canoeing, so we did and it was surely the most peaceful experience of my life. We were lucky that we went quite late so there was barely anyone else on the lake (unless you count the ducks). The place was absolutely amazing!!!

Leaving Jasper the next day (once again very sadly), we went on to the Athabasca Falls. When watching these raging falls you can feel their power. I think these are the falls which impressed me most. Watching them slowly eat away at the ground below them I could feel how powerless humans are against some against these strong forces of nature.

We decided to stop at the Columbia icefield, within the Icefields parkway we had seen a couple of days before, in order to hike up to the Athabasca Glacier. We did so and managed to walk a short bit on the Glacier itself. Imagine that! Walking on ice which is thousands of years old. This Glacier is one of the six principal toes of the Columbia Icefield. Due to the warming climate, the glacier has receded more than 1.5 km in the past 125 years and lost over half of its volume. It seems that within the next 3 generations, this Glacier will be lost forever. This may be a problem since this Glacier feeds a number of lakes which are used for water.

After this it was bye bye Jasper National Park… a long drive on to Alberta and Vancouver…

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We have finally managed to sort the Banff pictures ready for upload, so here goes our Banff experience..

Arriving in Banff we realised that it was much hotter then we expected. I am actually thinking I will be getting the sun tan I did not get all summer in Malta!! :p We were also surprised by the location of Banff... it is completeley surrounded by mountains. You go out of a shop and all around you see mountains and flowers... and wildlife!

The place is too pretty to describe and photos do not do it justice. This is true for most of the places we have visited here.

The day after arriving in Banff we drove off to Moraine Lake. This is the prettiest lake we have yet seen:

We took a stroll to climb up a rockpile to get a view from the top... and oh!!! What a view! I guess the nicest thing about this lake was that there were not too many people around.

After leaving Moraine Lake we drove a short distance to Lake Louise, which is the more famous lake of the area. Altough it is also pretty, there were just too many tourists so we went away quickly. (We were also very hungry and food from near the lake was too pricey!) These are some shots:

We went back to Banff and ate a hot rock lunch at 'The Grizzly bear'... with chocolate fondue for desert... and guess what! They use toblerone chocolate for fondue just like I do at home. Mark and I were amazed!!

After lunch we went up on a Gondola (cable car) to Sulphur Mountain. It had an elevation of around 7000ft.

Going down, the Gondola stopped in mid-air for 5 hearth wrenching minutes... the look on my face in the last photo below shows how happy I was during the wait. Mark was bemused at my anxiety.

The next day we departed for Jasper. Still within the Banff national park we visited Johnston canyon. In the area there are several waterfalls. We walked for 3 hours to view them all, but it was well worth it!





After the long walk up and down valleys we decided we deserved a good lunch. We found this beautiful and relaxing place which was an old railway station. Trains still pass on the rails next to the restaurant. And it was not even too expensive even though it was next to Lake Louise!!


All in all, we were sorry to leave Banff… but then we got to Japer and it was a whole new experience. Watch this space for bears and more. Coming soon!

Hugs and miss you all,
Patz and Mark

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Since it rained all weekend, the plans layed out by Grace needed to be cancelled and new plans made. No matter! We still enjoyed both days immensely, mostly due to the wonderful people who joined us for these days.

I will start off with some photos of the kids:

Top 2 are Deanna and Mark's daughters, bottom left is Rebecca, Paul and Anne's Daughter and bottom right is one of Veronica's nephews.

On Saturday all of us went to the Toronto Eaton centre. All of us means around 12 people... Forget the shopping, but it was still loads of fun. Ok... I have to admit, I did some shopping anyway

On Sunday, we woke up left and all met at Veronica and Tony's house. Tony showed us his collection of cardboad US navy boats he makes by hand. WOW! super stuff... from the looks you would never tell they were cardboard...

The above photos shows the following people:

• Going to Walmart to buy some toothpaste

• In front of Deanna and Veronica's houses before leaving for downtown

• All of us touring downtown Toronto

The following are some images from downtown:



And this is probably Toronto's most famous place, the CN Tower:

And finally, here are a couple of family shots:

Bye bye Toronto people! We already miss you. Hope to see you all in Malta sooooooon!!

Hugs,
Patz

Ps. I know I am some days late with uploads. Will try to make it up these two days since we should have internet access.

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The first photo taken is of Alfie (Carmelo and Carl's schnauzer...)

At noon we started our 2 hour drive to Niagara on the lakes, with Grace, Veronica, Paul, Karmenu and Karl. Here they are below:

Top right: Carmelo and Carl, Top left: Paul, Bottom left: Veronica, Bottom right: Grace.

We first went over to Niagara-on-the-lake a pretty town over Niagara Lake.

There we found these wonderful little chocolate shop making fudge and chocolate and toffee and caramel apples!!! YUMMY!!!!!!

After Niagara-on-the-lake we went off to the Niagara falls. Before getting there we stopped at the GreatWolf Lodge. There is a HUGE indoor water park. WOW!! I want to be a kid again!

We finally got to the falls and it is a really incredible sight!!

After an amazingly wonderful and hectic day we got back home at 2:00am and straight to bed.

We enjoyed the day immensely... Thanks guys!

• Click on the photos to view a larger picture.

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There were Grace, Veronica (Grace's sister and both my mum's cousins) and Dianna (Grace's daughter) waiting for us... and off we go! Our month holiday stars here!!

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• Leave Vernon for Kelowna and stop in Kelowna for the night
  
• From Kelowna, pass through Princeton
  
• On to E.C. Manning Provincial park where we'll spend some time
  
• On to Vancouver where the second part of our honeymoon ends.
  

And here is the route:

Ps: Click on the map to view a larer image

Crossing the Canadian Rockies [Days 10,11] remains copyright of the author PatandMark, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Well I actually did something in preperation for the trip which I had not planned. I bought a wedding present for my mum's cousin's daughter (got that?!) in Toronto, who will be getting married 3 days after we leave for Calgary! What a pity to be missing the wedding!

I also updated all previous posts so that it is now possible to click on the maps and see a larger map. It is now possible to actually see the route

So here we go with Day 9. On this day there'll be no site visiting, but we need to get from Jasper to Vernon. We'll be getting two ferries, one at Shelter Bay and one at Fauquier.

Here's the route:

PS. Relaxing continued also on Sunday at Hubby's friend's house, in the pool. Thanks Michael! :-D
Oh and I was forgetting a BBQ on Sat evening with Hubby's brother and family and Hubby's aunt and family. Pretty relaxing too. I guess I deserved it after a hard week of work

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And these are the plans for day 8:

• From Jasper on to Maligne lake
  
• On to Mount Edith Cavell
  
• Back to Jasper for the night
  

And here's the route:

• Click on the image for a larger view

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And here we go. I'll start adding links to day 7!

Day 7

• Leave Banff for Lake Louise
  
• Drive through and stop to admire places along the way of the Icefields Parkway
  
• Drive through Sunwapta pass.
  
• Arrive at Jasper in the evening.
  

Route map:

PS: Thanks to all our family and friends who are visiting this site. Please subscribe or visit often so that we can keep you updated while we're away. And do leave comments if you can! I just love having feedback. Let me know if I can improve the blog in any way.

• Click on the map to view a larger image

Crossing the Canadian Rockies [Day 7] remains copyright of the author PatandMark, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Well to continue with plans done so far, this is the plan for day 6:

• Leave Banff and drive to Moraine lake and spend some time there.
  
• Drive to Upper Hot Springs and spend a couple of hours
  
• Drive to Lake Minnewanka
  
• Back to Banff to sleep in the evening
  

And we will be driving along this route:

• Click on the map to view a larger image

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Here's the route we'll be taking:

• Click on the map to view a larger image

Crossing the Canadian Rockies [Day 5] remains copyright of the author PatandMark, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Grace also said that there'll be the Exhibition going on at the time so we may go too

After these days in Toronto, we'll be flying to Calgary.
The following is the road we'll take to get from Calgary to Vancouver. We plan on doing this over 6 days. Won't mind if we take a day longer.

Ps. We found a kennel for our dog Jack (black cocker spaniel) today. Really sorry to be leaving him behind for so long. But at least the owners seem to love dogs very much and I trust they will care for him well in our abscense.

• Click on the map to view a larger image

Still planning remains copyright of the author PatandMark, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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My husband and I enjoy doing different things and therefore we usually have to find out what the Absolute cannot miss things are for both.

Since I love planning and my husband loves to take things as they go along, we usually end up doing more of the things I like and less of what he likes.

We will be starting this trip with a visit to Toronto. We shall be staying with my mum's Aunt and there are some of my mother's cousins living there too. Looking forward to meeting them all! Most I have last seen when I was a tiny little girl.

We're hoping to visit the Niagara falls once we're there.

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First entry just a month before we leave. We have the trip planned and really getting excited about it.

Our plan is the following:
Leave Malta for Toronto on the 31st of August. Spend 4 days in Toronto with family and then fly over to Calgary. In Calgary we will be renting a car and then we'll drive to Vancouver. We plan on spending 6 days to get to Vancouver, stopping at any interesting place along the way.

In Vancouver we'll be meeting a couple of Maltese friends and we'll do some sightseeing in Vancouver before leaving for Alaska 4 days later. We'll land in Anchorage, travel to Kenai for our 4 day adventure holiday and then back to Anchorage. From Whittier we'll embark for our weeklong cruise which will take us back to Vancouver.

Here we'll leave our friends who will be coming back to Malta, while we cross over to Victoria island. We'll come back to Malta a week later.

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