Kerri and I booked into our usual hotel, grabbed a car for the weekend. The car was a Buick and a complete pile of crap. It is typical of most of the North American built garbage cars you can buy here. They're even worse than the Aussie Falcons and Commodores! The Buick had poor steering, poor visibility, dreadful fuel economy and the turning circle of a bus. The brakes were the worst of all. When you even stand on the brake pedal a little the whole front end shuddered! Needless to say, I was giving other vehicles plenty of space during the weekend, particularly with wet conditions at times. End Rant.
Moraine Lake is the pick of the sights we've seen in Canada to date. The weather wasn't at all helpful over the weekend. The overcast and sometimes rainy conditions weren't at all conducive to great photos. Having said that, the lake makes it very difficult to take a bad photo. This particular shot (above) is on 1000s of postcards around here. You can see why. No reflections this time, but there has be some significant snow falls in the last week or so, taking the dirty grey look away from the high peaks.
We are all familiar with the Road Runner cartoons and have always felt sorry for the skinny, desert living coyote.
Well, we spotted a pair of them on the Bow Valley Parkway. They look nothing like the cartoon. These ones looked quite healthy and well fed (probably from the numerous rodents on offer in this part of the world). They weren't hanging around to see what we were up to and I only managed this rubbish shot as one of them was running away. They're about the size of a midsized dog. I hope I can get a better photo of one at some point. They're one of the 3 elusive true carnivores I have been so eager to see. The other two are Wolves and Cougars. Bear's are also on the list, but aren't exclusive carnivores. In fact they are more partial to berries than meat.
The mountains are spectacular at this time of year. The deciduous trees are all turning in preparation for the harsh winter and the green colours that greeted us four months ago, are now giving way to yellows and reds.
Vermillion Lakes
Nature is going all out to flower & seed before winter sets in properly in about a month.
This marsh is less than 5km from the centre of Banff and skirts Vermillion Lakes.
The Bow River
I just can't emphasise enough, how much the minerals enhance the waterways in Banff national park. The Bow river (below) is a classic example of how those minerals act to change the water to the distinctive blue colour that is so typical of the area.
Also notice the mountain peak behind still has the dirty grey appearance that all of them have had during summer. This shot was taken before two days of snow fall.
