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Tunnel Mountain Campground, Banff, Alberta, Canada. Odometer – 6280

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We woke up really late today and by the time we left the campground for a hike it was almost noon. We drove to Johnson Lake, not far from the campground, for a 3km walk around the water. Lots of families come there because it is an easy walk plus there is a nice sandy beach with picnic tables. Some kids even swam in the water. As we parked we saw a family with kids slightly older than ours unload a large canoe. We later saw them paddling on the water.

The hike was very pretty, but one section was really had. We had the girls in a stroller, and at one point the trail was very narrow. We were walking on a slope and I could only get 2 wheels to touch ground, and even that was at an uncomfortable angle for the girls. We found a solution as follows: Paola helped me by grabbing the front wheel, so that just the rear left wheel was on the ground. We could write a book about hiking with this stroller. By the way, Shir and Orr fell asleep during the hard part and will never know the hard work that went to transporting them.

We finally got through the hard part and continued on more level terrain. When we got back to the starting point, I got a picnic table and watched over the sleeping girls, while Paola went to the RV to prepare lunch. By the time the girls woke up, Paola was back with the food. The beach was full of people by now, swimming, kayaking, and also just sunbathing.

We drove to Lake Minnewanka and saw some mountain sheep lazing about the side of the road. We stopped to take pictures, especially of the rounded horns. The sheep are now losing all their winter coat, so they looked like the equivalent of a homeless person, all the wool in disarray.

After seeing that Lake Minnewanka is nice, and discovering that people actually scuba dive in there (what do they see?) we drove back into Banff town to visit Cave and Basin a historical site that led to the creation of the Canadian Park System.

In 1880 something, 3 Railroad workers discovered a thermal spring at the site of said Cave, and wanted to turn it to a tourist attraction for fun and (mostly) profit. The Canadian government thanked them kindly and took possession of the area and created Banff Park. This is also the time to explain the source of the name Banff. The railroad director at the time trains first reached here was a Scotsman from the town of Banffshire.

We saw the cave, a swimming pool that is no longer in use, and some other exhibits that relate to the historical and natural significance of the place. We walked through a unique marsh area created by the hot waters. Turns out it supports vegetation that otherwise would not survive in the harsh winter, including 6 different types of orchids.

The kids wanted some fun too, so we drove half a km down to yesterday’s playground and while the children played I attempted to BBQ some steaks. Unfortunately I had some wood burning problems and the steaks were too rare. I had to run back to the RV to cook them some more in a frying pan. What a disappointment. After dinner we played some more in the playground. Orr fell in love with a Golden Retriever called Tonka and played with him for almost half an hour while Paola chatted with the owner, a local mother out with daughter and pet.

We are a bit distraught at not being able to connect to the internet at the campground. So on the way in from town we stopped across the street from some motel and picked up a WIFI signal. We got email updates, but the kids were to antsy to make this a long stop. So we are a bit backlogged on updating our online blog.

Good night,

-Hemi

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007 at 2:09 pm and is filed under Alberta, Big Trip, Canada, North America RV 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.